Slaves: How many are providing for your needs?

Did you wake up this morning wondering how many slaves are providing for your needs? You should have. I have 32. I’m not proud of it. It’s something we don’t think about, but maybe everyone should think about it. And once you learn about it you might want to alter your purchasing or hold the United States companies and corporations accountable for the labor that is used to make their product. Make them aware that you want them to make changes. Made in the USA makes a difference, but is not always a guarantee.

Your slaves, like mine, work 12-20 hours a day, 6-7 days a week with little or no pay. Minimal amounts of food are given to them. The largest numbers of them are children, many working in dangerous situations.

Is child and forced adult labor really used to provide things I use?

Yes! Slave labor is common. However, everything made in the following examples is not only made by a child or forced labor. A large amount of it is slave-free labor. The United States and Canada are some of the countries trying to support labor that pays adults a liveable wage and doesn’t include child labor. This, unfortunately, takes time to eliminate all sources. Items produced with slave labor can be bought at a cheaper price, so from a profit view, it’s more profitable to look the other way.

Child labor is used since children usually do not earn a wage, or it’s a very small amount. They work long hours, six days a week, sometimes in dangerous jobs. They aren’t fed much. Some of the children have been sold by their parents to work, in exchange for some money. I have watched an anti-slavery film that showed a father sitting around mid-day watching a television, that he purchased from profits made from his child(ren.) In that country, if fathers have enough children they don’t need to work. Most child laborers are not allowed to go to school. There are actually some that work in the morning and then are dropped off at school, after a six-hour day working in the fields.

Forced laborers are adults. They may have borrowed money and can’t repay it so they are attempting to work off that money. Or maybe they tried to get a regular job and once they started working they found out it was not as promised and they couldn’t get out of it. Forced North Korean laborers are not necessarily located in North Korea. They work in other countries and their pay is sent directly to the North Korean government, for the government’s use. The laborers do get about 10-30% of their pay to keep. Housekeepers and nannies are sometimes sent to the United States for a job. It ends up they become an employee in a home where they are not paid or allowed to leave the house. They may not get any time off and possibly sleep in the garage or a room locked from the outside.

Supplying our needs

Some of our slaves are children in India who work in the mines gathering mica. This is a very dangerous job for children. Would you send your children off to work in a mine for the day? Mica gives us the specks of sparkle in eye shadow, blush, lipstick, and nail polish, used by most women in the United States.

Do you own rechargeable batteries? I’m referring to the ones in your cell phone, laptop computer, or even your electric car. Cobalt Ore is mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Children are used to go into the mines for the cobalt ore. The end use of the Cobalt ore is to make the rechargeable lithium batteries used in these products.

Four countries produce salt using child labor. Salt is common in most households in America. Those countries are Cambodia, Niger, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan.

Are you a coffee drinker? Think twice about your coffee. There are over 15 countries that use child slave labor to harvest their coffee. These countries include Mexico, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Uganda, Vietnam, Guatemala, and Columbia. If a package of coffee is slave-free coffee, the package should be fair trade certified, but not every company pays to have their coffee beans traced and certified.

Supplying our desires

Chocolate is largely slave-grown and harvested. 70% of cocoa beans are harvested on plantations of the Ivory Coast. Children are forced into harvesting the crop with machetes. Mars, Nestle, and Hershey had pledged to be slave-free by 2020. This was about 20 years ago. In 2012, Hershey stated that at that time 1 to 2% of their chocolate was Fairtrade certified (AKA no child or slave labor.) Mars, Nestle, and Hershey are not close and are not worried about meeting that deadline. Hershey recently stopped using its free trade supplier for making its Kit Kat bars. It seems child labor to make Halloween treats for children, is O.K. to be made by children.

Diamonds and gold rank up high in many people’s desires. For diamond mining, there is child labor in four countries including the Central African Republic and Liberia, plus a combination of child and forced labor in Sierra Leone and Angola. Gold is mined underwater or in a river. The child uses a breathing tube, not equipment meant for mining gold safely. They process the gold with mercury, which causes irreversible health issues. It is estimated that 600,000 children are mining gold in almost twenty countries including Ethiopia, Mali, Philippines, Nicaragua, Sudan, and Uganda. In North Korea, they also use forced labor to mine gold. There are three countries including Peru, that use both child and forced labor. More countries, over twenty, use child or forced labor, to mine and process gold. This makes gold, the product produced in more countries than any other item, using slavery.

Built into your home

There are over twenty countries using slaves to produce bricks and clay bricks. Some of the countries relying on child slave labor for bricks are Argentina, Brazil, Cambodia, Columbia, Uganda, Vietnam, and Iran. In North Korea and Russia, they use forced (adult) labor. A combination of forced and child labor is used in Pakistan, Burma, Nepal, India, China, and Afghanistan.

Some carpets are woven by young children in Afghanistan and Iran. Children can work up to 14 hours a day weaving carpet. This leaves them with no time to go to play with other children or go to school. In Pakistan, Nepal, and India the carpet weavers are made up of both child and forced labor.

Even America uses child and forced labor

Most clothing sold in the United States is made in a country where slave labor is common. These countries include China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Cambodia. I’m sure you have seen those countries on clothing tags. Made in the USA is not a guarantee that it was made slave-free. There have been women rescued from dangerous sweatshops in the Los Angeles, California garment district. These women slept in the factory, living in secrecy, working more hours in a day, than most non-slave workers are allowed.

Some agricultural workers in the United States are also forced labor. Years back a farmer in Florida was found to have forced labor picking his tomatoes.

Several years ago it was discovered that many massage parlors and nail salons had forced labor. Quite often when a place was closed down the owner, who usually was not on site, would move the business elsewhere. It took a while for these places to be shut down due to a lack of customers willing to turn them in, or customers who were unaware of what was really going on, and the laws that were currently on record in the city had to be changed. In the city I lived in at the time, two massage parlors were closed. One of them had girls that lived on-site, only able to leave to get food at the grocery store next door.

Providing the little extras

Unfortunately, many toys are made in China using child labor and forced labor. Think about that for a minute. Your child may be playing with toys or getting them next Christmas, that have been made by Chinese children, working long days, never being able to play with toys themselves.

Mostly men are interested in this item. It’s probably not something you consider to be imported into the United States. It’s pornography. Child labor is involved in producing pornography in Columbia, Ukraine, Thailand, the Philippines, Paraguay, and Mexico. Russia uses child labor and forced labor to produce some of their pornography. The demand for pornography continues to grow, which leads to more being made. The demand for small children in pornography is especially high.

Where can you find Fair Trade Certified items?

Fair Trade involves a partnership between global marketers and the people that produce the product. As part of the agreement, employees must receive a fair wage for the area in which they are living. They must have opportunities for advancement. The conditions for work must be healthy and safe, based on the area. If possible the marketers should provide financial and technical assistance to the producers/farmers. No child labor abuse allowed. The employer must be open to public accountability. Environmentally sustainable practices must be used. A long-term trade relationship should be established. Once they comply, they can be Fair Trade Certified.

Costco, Trader Joes, and Starbucks do carry some items that are slave-free. Look for the label. You can Google Certified Fair Trade to find other items that can be purchased online. The following brands have some, if not all of their products, produced without slave labor. They are LARA Bars Guittard Chocolate, bark THINS, Devine Chocolate, Driscoll’s strawberries, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, Clif Bars, West Elm rugs, and Annie’s. REI has items of clothing that carry the Fair Trade Certified label.

How many slaves do you have?

Finding out how many slaves are providing for your needs is simple. It requires that you take a small quiz that was created by Slavery Footprint. Follow this link to take your quiz: http://slaveryfootprint.org/survey/

I hope this post has caused you to think a little about the products you purchase. If you dare, let me know how many slaves are providing for your needs. If you find something else that carries the Fair Trade Certified label, please let me know.

For more information check out the U.S. Department of Labor’s 2018 List of goods produced by child labor or forced labor. This list is prepared each year as a requirement of the Trafficking Victims Protection Resolution Act of 2005. It will supply you with a lot more information and pictures of the child and forced labor in action. https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ILAB/ListofGoods.pdf