After Halloween, it’s the second biggest time of year for buying chocolate.

Chocolate didn’t make the list of the top 10 commodities produced using child slave labor, but it only missed by a hair. Particularly in the Ivory Coast, child trafficking for work in the cocoa plantations is rampant.

Ten years ago, the largest chocolate companies around the world signed a protocol (the Harkin-Engel Protocol) that was supposed to bring an end to that practice, but to no avail. The practice continues with very little enforcement of the standards set forth. The Protocol relies on the industry’s self-regulation, and that is it’s undoing.

Of all the chocolate companies that were signers of the Protocol, Hershey‘s has been the most flagrant violator, having done nothing to implement any of it whatsoever. Hershey’s therefore, has been the focus of some intense public demonstrations and other campaigns over the past few years. Most notably among these is the Raise the Bar Hershey campaign, cooperatively led by Green America, Global Exchange, the  International Labor Rights Forum, and Oasis for People and Community.

Last winter, the Raise the Bar campaign raised enough money to air a commercial that was to run during the Superbowl to shine a huge spotlight on Hershey‘s non-compliance. At the last minute, Hershey announced that it would begin sourcing its Bliss product line with certified organic cocoa. The certification is the first baby step in the right direction, and is the first time Hershey has allowed any kind of independent certification of it’s supply chain. The organic certification, though, is only for organic product, and says nothing about the labor conditions, and it is only for a very small product line within the overall Hershey brand.

As a good-will gesture, Raise the Bar pulled the Superbowl commercial at the last minute. Still, Hershey will make millions this Valentines Day on chocolate that comes from plantations using child slave labor. So, the campaign continues, and you can help the kids enslaved on the cocoa plantations. The pressure is still on to help Hershey see the light and go fair trade.

First, This year, our family made homemade valentines that will be sent to Hershey CEO, John Bilbrey, and Chairman of the Hershey Foundation’s Board of Managers, Robert F. Cavanaugh. You can download some ideas and all the information you need from the Raise the Bar Valentine Action page, and from Global Exchange’s Valentine Action Page. It’s a great family activity, everyone learns together, and kids get involved in making a difference.

Second, you can buy fair trade chocolate for your sweetheart(s). There is a huge variety of fair trade chocolate. Here are two companies I’ve personally sampled that have some special Valentines Day deals:

• Divine Chocolate – and yes, it is divine! (Also on Facebook, and Twitter.) Sourced from cocoa farms in Ghana, the farmers who make your chocolate have a 45% ownership share in the company.
• Equal Exchange. (Also on Facebook and Twitter.) Equal Exchange has been in the cocoa business for years, and has a proven track record of helping the people who grow their cocoa. They have plenty of other fair trade products, too. And, better yet, if you’re part of a faith group, you can even get this stuff at wholesale rates by buying it through your church at their Interfaith Store.

Third, if you must buy a Hershey product, buy the Bliss line of products. By this, you’ll help Hershey figure out that doing the right thing is also good for their bottom line.

You can make a difference by being aware of where your chocolate comes from, by letting companies know that you care about where the products you want are coming from, and by putting your money where your mouth is – literally.

Happy Valentines Day!

“The average temperature around the globe in 2011 was 0.92 degrees F (0.51 C) warmer than the mid-20th century baseline,” the report states, and NASA makes no bones about why:

The carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere was about 285 parts per million in 1880, when the GISS global temperature record begins. By 1960, the average concentration had risen to about 315 parts per million. Today it exceeds 390 parts per million and continues to rise at an accelerating pace.

This video was put together by rocket scientists, but you don’t need to be one to understand why its critical now to stop carbon dioxide and other emissions before it’s too late.

This weekend CNN’s Freedom Project is premiering a documentary on child slavery on the cocoa plantations of the Ivory Coast: Chocolate’s Child Slaves. It should be a huge eye-opener on the scale of The Dark Side of Chocolate (2009). As you’ll see, the problem hasn’t gone away over the past three years since Dark Side‘s release.

The first showing is tonight, Friday, January 20, 2012: 8.00pm GMT (that’s London time) on CNN International, and in the US on Saturday, Jan 21 at 9pm (Eastern). You can catch it again on Sunday, Jan 22 at 11pm (Eastern).

Here’s the trailer:

One doesn’t have to be a Christian, let alone a Reverend Christian, to confront and challenge the entrenched prejudices and the military-industrial complex as Rev. Dr. King did. One doesn’t have to belong to a church to lay down one’s life as Jesus and King did, either. But for those, like Rev. Dr. King, whose faith and commitment to follow Jesus is the foundation of their ongoing struggle for justice, here is my attempt to provide a connection between the modern struggle and the Biblical witness.

The Scarlet Journey is a series of six studies taken from selected passages in Mark’s gospel leading up to and including Jesus’ crucifixion. The studies are designed for use during the traditional Christian season of Lent, but can be used in whatever way is most appropriate to your situation.

The six studies include:

1. Mark 14:3-9. Money and Sex
2. Mark 14:32-42. Praying for Your Life
3. Mark 14:66-72. Failure of Nerve
4. Mark 15:6-15. Non-Violent Action vs. Armed Rebellion
5. Mark 15:21-32. What Would You Die For?
6. Mark 15:40-47. What Remains When Dreams Die
7. An Epilog (with Reflection Questions) on Mark’s Resurrection

The first study in the series is available as a free download. The complete series is available for $7, which entitles you to make as many copies as you need for your personal use or with a study group.

Modern slavery, or human trafficking as it’s often referred to, is a huge and worldwide issue. Estimates of the number of slaves worldwide currently range between 12- and 27 million people, more than any other time in human history.

Photo by Jacob Freeze via AlterNet

The US State Department now has an entire division to monitor and combat it. (It’s latest report is here.) The US Congress first designated January 11 Human Trafficking Awareness Day in 2007. On December 30, President Obama declared January, “National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, culminating in the annual celebration of National Freedom Day on February 1.”

The increasing attention given to human trafficking by the US government reflects an increasing realization that this is not just a problem in underdeveloped lands far away. It’s happening, in many cases, right under our noses here in the US. The State Department’s 2011 report on the problem within the US confesses:

The United States is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor, debt bondage, document servitude, and sex trafficking. Trafficking occurs for commercial sexual exploitation in street prostitution, massage parlors, and brothels, and for labor in domestic service, agriculture, manufacturing, janitorial services, hotel services, hospitality industries, construction, health and elder care, and strip club dancing. Vulnerabilities are increasingly found in visa programs for legally documented students and temporary workers who typically fill labor needs in the hospitality, landscaping, construction, food service, and agricultural industries. There are allegations of domestic workers, foreign nationals on A-3 and G-5 visas, subjected to forced labor by foreign diplomatic or consular personnel posted to the United States. Combined federal and state human trafficking information indicates more sex trafficking than labor trafficking investigations and prosecutions, but law enforcement identified a comparatively higher number of labor trafficking victims as such cases uncovered recently have involved more victims. U.S. citizen victims, both adults and children, are predominantly found in sex trafficking; U.S. citizen child victims are often runaways, troubled, and homeless youth. Foreign victims are more often found in labor trafficking than sex trafficking. In 2010, the number of female foreign victims of labor trafficking served through victim services programs increased compared with 2009. The top countries of origin for foreign victims in FY 2010 were Thailand, India, Mexico, Philippines, Haiti, Honduras, El Salvador, and the Dominican Republic.

In the spirit of human trafficking awareness, think about this the next time you stay in a hotel, drive past a truck stop, or apple orchard, or visit an amusement park or a nursing home. (I won’t assume that iCaspar readers are visiting prostitutes, massage parlors, brothels, or strip clubs. But somebody is.) The next time you have chicken for dinner pause to wonder who the people are who are working in the poultry houses behind barbed wire fences. Do you really think they need 15-foot tall barbed wire to keep the chickens from escaping?

Human trafficking is a problem so big it’s hard to know where to start to do something about it. Fortunately, there are a number of resources on the web. Here are just a few:

• Find your slavery footprint, and see how many slaves are working for you. (You’ll be surprised.)
• Check out the Not For Sale Campaign.
• Download and use the Free2Work app for your iPhone or Android, to find out if the product you’re considering buying was made using slave labor.
• If you’re a student, join the Student Abolitionist Movement
• If you’re a health care worker, social service provider or law enforcement officer, learn to identify the signs and how to respond. Rescue and Restore Toolkits are available from the US Dept of Health and Human Services.
• If you’re a teacher (or even if you’re not) check out the curriculum and other resources at Anti-Slavery.
• Check out the awesome resources and get involved with the Abolish Slavery movement.
• Check out all the ways to get involved with Project Futures.
• The Polaris Project has state-by-state resources, information on current human trafficking legislation, and a hotline.
• International Justice Mission has resources for international trafficking as well as domestic (US) legislative action.
• The Dalit Freedom Network will give you a window (and a door) into one of the many specific groups affected by human trafficking in India.

And, stop back here at iCaspar.net later this month to check out a video interview with Kit Ripley, a Baptist missionary working on the front lines of the human trafficking issue in Thailand. Kit works at the New Life Center Foundation with young ethnic minority women throughout the Mekong sub-region who are at risk for, or victims of, human trafficking, forced labor, and sexual abuse.

What will you be doing for human trafficking awareness month? If you’ve been involved in human trafficking prevention or abolition, or helping those who have been rescued from modern slavery, what are your recommendations? I’ve named just a very few resources. What others do you know of and recommend? Please let us all know in the comments. Your links to online resources for human trafficking awareness and prevention are especially welcome on this post.

These fair trade wedding bands and more are available from artisanweddingrings.com

1. Gold
   Along with the Victoria’s Secret cotton story, this story also made headlines in December. Unfortunately, there is very little traceable gold out there. But, if you’re looking for jewelry, you can start by checking out Fair Jewelry Action. Not only do they take on the gold industry, but they’re taking on the diamond cartels, too. Child labor is supplying the world gold market from Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Columbia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Ghana, Guinea, Indonesia, Mali, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Niger, North Korea, Peru, Philippines, Senegal and Tanzania.
2. Cotton
   Don’t think (or stop thinking) that slave production of cotton ended with the US civil war. It’s just moved off shore. In 2011, the USDA reported that global consumption of cotton was 24.2 million metric tons. Most of that is produced in China and India/Pakistan, with US production at a distant third place. But China, India and Pakistan are all on the list of places that use child and forced labor in their cotton production. Other places include: Burkina Faso (the source of the now infamous Victoria’s Secret so-called fair trade cotton), Argentina, Azerbaijan, Benin, Brazil, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Paraguay, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
   
3. Bricks
   Here’s one we don’t think about very much. Most of us probably don’t go out to buy bricks very often. But think about it. Just about every building project needs them, and even though you’d think their weight might make importing bricks cost-prohibitive, there is a huge international market for them. Next time you’re doing a building project, ask your contractor where your bricks are coming from. And remember, bricks recycle. Countries using child and forced labor to manufacture bricks include: Afghanistan, Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Burma, Cambodia, China, Colombia, Ecuador, India, Nepal, North Korea, Pakistan, Peru, and Uganda.
   
4. Sugar
   The United States has a sweet tooth. And to satisfy it, the USDA reports that we imported over 3.1 million metric tons of it in 2011. And it’s not just what you put on your breakfast cereal in the morning or stir into your coffee. Read the label on just about anything in the grocery store and some form of sugar is probably mixed into it. Fortunately, you can find fair trade sugar. Check out Wholesome Sweeteners. Or, if you’re buying Domino or some other big brand, watch out for “Product of” labels that mention: Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Burma, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Kenya, Mexico, Pakistan, Panama, Philippines, Thailand, Turkey, and Uganda.
   
5. Tobacco
   Here’s another of those crops you might think of as having been produced by slaves on plantations a long time ago. Truth is, most tobacco is grown in foreign lands and imported now. And those foreign tobacco plantations haven’t kicked the slave labor habit. If you thought about quitting smoking this year, here’s yet another reason to kick the habit. Your nicotine fix may well be courtesy of children and slaves in the following countries: Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyz Republic, Lebanon, Malawi, Mexico, Nicaragua, Philippines, Tanzania, and Uganda.
   
6. Coffee
   Ah, that boost so many of us need to get ourselves up and moving in the morning. But that Folgers in your cup comes at a much higher price than you’re paying at the supermarket checkout. Fortunately, a huge variety of great fair trade coffees is now available in just about every place you look. Many small local roasters use fair trade beans. Even Starbucks has it, so don’t be afraid to ask for it. Coffee sourced by child and forced labor comes from just about everywhere coffee is grown: Colombia, Cote d’Ivoire, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Kenya, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Tanzania, and Uganda.
   
7. Rice
   Many Americans may be more accustomed to wheat and corn, but rice ranks right up there with the staple foods of the world. And more and more, rice is becoming a common alternative to potatoes and rolls on our dinner plates. Next time you buy a bag, see if you can figure out where it was grown. Children are working the rice fields in Brazil, Burma, Dominican Republic, India, Kenya, Mali, Philippines, and Uganda.
   
8. Coal
   You’ve all seen those pictures of coal miners in Appalachia, covered from head to toe with soot. You’ve heard about black lung disease, and dangerous conditions in mines. Now think about the children who are forced to work the even less regulated mines of China, Colombia, Mongolia, North Korea, Pakistan, and Ukraine. Your power company probably has a program for your to buy your power from wind, solar, or small hydro suppliers. Maybe now is the time to call that 1-800 number on your electric bill and make the switch.
   
9. Garments
   Next time you get dressed, take a moment to look at your clothing labels. It’ll be a rare exception if any of it says, “Made in the USA.” In the 1970s and 80s clothing manufacturers began to off-shore production of clothing to South America to take advantage of lower labor costs. That savings, as it turns out, was made possible by the widespread use of sweatshop labor. But even the South American labor force wasn’t cheap enough, so now you’ll find more and more clothing produced in Asian sweatshops. Buyer beware if your label says made in Argentina, China, India, Jordan, Malaysia, or Thailand.
   
10. Pornography
    Think about it. Child porn is illegal in the US, and probably most other places. And yet it makes the top 10 list of “commodities produced using child labor.” The underground market for it is huge. And, of course, it’s everywhere. But the places that produce the most of it are: Colombia, Mexico, Philippines, Russia, Thailand, and Ukraine.

So, there you have them. The top 10 list of shame. Did any of these surprise you? Are there others you thought would be there, but aren’t? I’ve offered a few suggestions about how you might go about minimizing your child-labor footprint. Perhaps others come to mind for you. If so, please do share them in the comments.

Cam Simpson. Photo via the Wall Street Journal online

Today, Fairtrade International released the findings of its investigation of Bloomberg’s Victoria’s Secret Article allegations.

And the plot thickens! It appears that the Bloomberg reporter responsible for the article, Cam Simpson, fabricated most of his story’s details.

Mitch Teberg, blogging at Fair Trade Journey, has also uncovered some serious inconsistencies and factual misrepresentations in the Bloomberg article.

What began as a wake-up call to the fair trade world to make sure that it’s not letting its principles fall through the cracks that have developed between emergent differences in marketing and certification strategies is now a story about journalistic ethics under the pressure of the modern 24-7 news cycle. Given these contradictions, one must now ask the question whether this is one reporter desperate for a story, or if it is part of a larger effort (as some have been implying) by business news agencies to discredit the fair trade movement.

I’ve sent an email to the editors of the Bloomberg article. It’ll be interesting to see what Bloomberg’s response is (if any). Meanwhile, what do you think? Whose report do you believe: Bloomberg or Fairtrade International? Has this story influenced your commitment to fair trade one way or another? Your comments welcome!

Last month, in the middle of the holiday shopping madness, Bloomberg published an article that quickly made it’s way around the blogosphere and even got some mainstream press. It was about how the cotton in Victoria’s Secret lingerie comes from fair trade certified plantations in Burkina Faso that Bloomberg found to be using child labor. Bloggers and advocacy groups began the call for boycotting Victoria’s Secret until the situation is remedied.

It’s hard to criticize the call to hold Victoria’s Secret accountable. In spite of Victoria’s Secret’s claims to have had no idea what was going on, it’s hard to believe that they didn’t know, especially given the prevalence of using child labor around the world in the cotton growing industry (and in the garment industry in general). Victoria’s Secret probably deserved at least some of the bad press.

But if you listen carefully to Victoria’s Secret’s excuse for allowing this to happen, you’ll find that there is a deeper, more insidious problem. And it is a damning statement about the way fair trade organizations have apparently been operating for some time.

Photo via Bloomberg

Tammy Roberts Myers, vice-president of external communications for Limited Brands Inc., Victoria’s Secret’s parent company, said for the Bloomberg article that the company relied on fair trade certification to meet its goal of “improving the lives of some of the world’s poorest women and children through the responsible sourcing of cotton.”

But when Bloomberg asked about the situation in Burkina Faso, Tuulia Syvaenen, chief operating officer of the Bonn-based Fairtrade International, which issued the certification denied knowing anything about child labor on fair trade certified cotton farms there. She also didn’t know about a 2008 report co-sponsored by the industry cotton growers itself, the Burkina Faso National Cotton Producers Union, which pointed out the concerns over child labor.

Bloomberg also reported that when asked about use of child labor on fair trade cotton plantations, the farmers responded: “No, they said nothing about children.”

Fairtrade International’s response to the Bloomberg article was that they were looking into it. They also expressed concern

…that the article may discourage people and companies from sourcing cotton from Burkina Faso or from other impoverished areas, which would have a devastating negative impact on cotton producing communities and their families, including girls and boys.

Fairtrade International also expressed their concern that,

Bloomberg’s claim that paying farmers more for their cotton, as in Fairtrade, encourages exploitation. However, we understand that simply paying more for cotton is not enough to ensure children are not abused, neglected and/or exploited. Child labour is a systemic problem perpetuated by poverty and unfair terms of trade, lack of access to quality education and social protection, discrimination, conflict, and other factors.

Fairtrade International is certainly right that there’s much more to exploitation than the opportunity to cash in a fair trade premium. Unfortunately, though, every instance of fair trade certification that turns out to be a mere rubber stamp without adequate initial training and ongoing investigation and supervision of producers does more to “discourage people and companies from sourcing [fair trade certified] cotton” than Bloomberg’s editorial bias ever could.

For fair trade to work, it not only has to make a real difference in the lives of the people and communities in which goods are produced. It also has to inspire the confidence and trust of its consumer markets. If purchasing agents at Victoria’s Secret relied on the certification with good intentions and are now getting a drudging in the press, they will have good reason to be skeptical of launching socially responsible product lines in the future. If consumers, reading the Bloomberg article (which was damaging enough on its own) and the other even more openly critical press about fair trade inadequacies, lose confidence in the movement, 40 years or more of hard-earned trust evaporates overnight. And the responsibility for that lies with Fairtrade International, not Victoria’s Secret or Bloomberg.

Victoria’s Secret is certainly not the completely innocent victim they claim to be in this case. They could have, and should have, been more careful. But in an industry where cotton production is second only to Gold on the list of commodities produced worldwide by enslaved children, simply boycotting a company that is making a good-faith effort to do better is not the solution. We can be pretty sure that buying our underwear from Hanes or Fruit of the Loom isn’t going to make our tighty-whities any less tainted.

The fair trade certification organizations like Fairtrade International were intended to make the situation better for children (and grown-ups) everywhere, and to give consumers a reliable alternative to supporting an abusive world market system.

The various Fairtrade Certified marks were never intended to be logos. They were intended to indicate that the sources have been thoroughly checked and are continuously monitored. For the consumer, including the corporate buyers for Victoria’s Secret, the price premium implies that the source checking has been done for you. But if you can buy a fair trade certification to cover up the way you buy children to work as slaves on your plantation, then the fair trade organizations who issue those certifications are in need of a radical overhaul.

If fair trade has become just another high-end feel-good brand, then Bloomberg and the rest of us have every right to be just a little more cautious of the certification organizations like Fairtrade International until they can show that they’ve got their certification fee money where their mouth is. And we consumers will have to be a lot more discerning about which among the proliferating fair trade marks carry the regulatory clout we have come to expect.

In July, 2011 my family and I moved from our home of five years. With the move came the opportunity to reassess a lot of things. I started writing as a full-time occupation. And with that change it became apparent to me that, while some of the material that had accumulated here over two years was interesting to a wider audience, there was a lot that was only interesting to a few close family members and friends.

(Don’t get me wrong. I love my family and friends, and I appreciate their support over the last two years. But now it’s time to retool this space for a wider audience. To those who, for whatever reason, are curious about what we had for dinner, I’ve pulled an old idea out of the dustbin for that. You’ll find it at my other resurrected old blog, Caspar World.)

So, what’s this new iCaspar going to be about?

Let me put it this way. Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to be a part of some amazing movements.

• I’ve worked with survivors of domestic violence, and with people who have been doing ground-breaking stuff on not just intervention, but prevention.
• I’ve had the chance to participate in the fair trade movement, and meet a few of the people who have been responsible for it’s success on the inside.
• I’ve helped take groups of teenagers to the United Nations to study the use of children as soldiers and sex slaves.
• I’ve spent time with all kinds of labor agitators, peace-nicks, hippies, environmental protestors and children’s advocates.
• I’ve spent time in City Council hearing rooms making a case for low-income housing opportunities, and I’ve spent time in the proverbial “smoke-filled” closed meetings where candidates for office are chosen.

I guess you could say I’ve been a kind of accidental activist. Because I never intended for my life to have unfolded in this way. When I got through with my first year in college I was a physics major. I thought I wanted to be a civil engineer. What I discovered, looking back, is that there are a lot of people, no matter what they do for a “day job,” who end up getting caught up in issues that are bigger than what they planned for.

• Like the homeowner who all of a sudden can’t rely on clean well water because of the hydrofracking operation in the next town.
• Like the mom whose kid gets sick from lead paint on his Thomas the Tank Engine toys.
• Like the people whose jobs are all of a sudden moving to China, or Bangladesh, or Sri Lanka.
• Like the teenager who thinks he might be gay and isn’t sure whether he should tell his parents.
• Like the town in the mountains whose economy is built on skiing, when it stops snowing.
• Like the dad who sees a “No Lot Lizards” bumper sticker on a pickup truck as he’s driving down the highway and wonders what that possibly could be about.
• Like the grandmother who all of a sudden can’t visit her grandchildren because they have gone with their mother to live in a safe house.

The new iCaspar is one accidental activist sharing his experience with other accidental activists in the hope that something I’ve seen or heard or done or picked up along the way can help someone else who’s wondering how to get through it.

Obviously, what I write here is just from my own experience. I’m not claiming to be any better than the next person. But I do hope that together we can help each other and future accidental activists to leave the world a better place than when we found it – and still have time for all the other things we thought we wanted to do in the first place.

Well, that’s my idea. I’d love to know what you think. Feel free to chime in using the comments.

Cheers! And happy new year!