Location Doesn't Always Matter

Upon our own soil, in our own country, and in the very close southern state of Florida, where issues like slavery should no longer be thought of, have somehow managed to resurface. A group of workers made up of Latino, Mayan Indian, and Haitian immigrants have been forced into what I consider an industry of modern day slavery. They are known as the Immokalee workers.

The Immokalee workers are farmers who pick the produce, such as tomatoes, that the companies need to run their businesses. Companies such as Walmart, Taco Bell, and Sodexo all buy from these tomato companies. There are times when they are paid forty to fifty cents per 32 pound bucket of tomatoes that they pick for companies in need of produce. These numbers have barely changed over the past 2 1/2 decades. Because of their frustration with the poverty stricken conditons and extremely unfair treatment, they formed a group to protest slave labor and called it The Coalition of Immokalee Workers. In attempt to gain equal treatment in the working industry, where they will be able to have fair wages and good employer-employee relationships, they began to boycott certain companies that they pick tomatoes and other produce for. Their biggest company so far is Taco Bell.

Some may wonder if this is a sufficient way to handle the reoccurring problem of slave labor. Is the boycotting of certain companies a good enough solution to solve the problem that the Immokalee people face in southern Florida? It is more than acceptable. All they want is for companies to say that they won't use slave labor in order to obtain good produce. They no longer want to be threatened or have violence used against them if they don't do the work. These people work outside in the fields for countless hours and the companies they work for only want to pay them measly, unfair wages. These companies don't even follow the laws against not paying workers minimum wage. And it should no longer be allowed. Progress can, will, and has been made to make the conditions better for the Immokalee people.

Not the Children!

Children like Wilson Peter and Dai Manju have adult responsibility placed upon them at an early age. They are a vital component to the income of their homes. Working in mines and having to give up an education are definitely no way for a child to live. In the case of Wilson Peter of Mererani, Tanzania, he has to work in the Tanzanite mines. He is asked about the dangers of the mine and what he fears. He says, “I could just fall in the mine. You can slip and fall. The mine can collapse on you. While sifting, you swallow the dust. You can get really hurt. “ Dai Manju lived in the Dabie Mountains of China. She had to drop out of school to help around the house and work to bring funds into the household. The initial opportunity to acquire an education was stripped from her. Thus the question is asked, why the children? Many children are made to work because their parents simply are not making enough money to support the family. This opens up the door for the children to be exploited. Why should the children have to suffer? Organizations such as the Good Hope Program of Mererani and Nivasa sponsor children being exploited and enslaved. The Good Hope Program of Mererani takes young men and train them in a trade such as mechanics or farming. Nivasa is an organization in Sri Lanka that provides financial assistance to victims of human trafficking to help them raise and educate their children. If there can be aid given to the families suffering, similar to Nivasa, there would be no need for the children to have to work. Also, the children are being educated, why not the parents? Of course they have to work to live, but what if there were funds allocated to assisting the parents while they go to school and can get better paying jobs in factories or offices? Kids should be able to enjoy their childhood and begin an education. I feel as though the rescue efforts wait for the child to be in trouble to intervene and help. It seems more sensible and effective to address the issue at the stem rather than wait for the children to get involved.

Cellphones: Gateway to Education and Equality

Knowing English is a highly marketable skill in the Indian economy. It is a vital asset for jobs in India's growing service industry, and opens up countless doors in the business world. For this reason, English is a common course in Indian schools, private and public. However, many children in rural India are unable to maintain regular school attendance because they need to work for their families.

An organization, called Mobile and Immersive Learning for Literacy in Emerging Economies (MILLEE), has developed an effective and efficient solution: cellphone games. Despite how ridiculous this claim seems at first, this idea of "mobile learning" is well thought out and display the kind of entrepreneurial spirit needed to produce the innovations that will help end poverty. MILLEE's programmers have developed a suite of educational games that teach English literacy. The cellphone's portability and convenience allow children to learn at home and in the field. The best thing about MILLEE's approach is that they program the games on a case-by-case basis rather than a country or world wide platform. They use local games from each individual region as the basis of each game so children are familiar with the games and motivated to play them. Over the past five years, MILLEE has been phenomenally successful, and expanded their program from India to include Africa and China.

MILLEE's program has also shown other benefits in ending social inequalities. In the initial study alone, 8 cross-caste friendships were formed among the 18 participants. Caste boundaries are normally inviolable, but this innovative program has begin breaking down the social barriers. With any luck, this will be a continuing trend and not just a freak anomaly.

Love Gone Wrong

In the United States, the average age of a girl entering into the commercial sex industry is thirteen years old. Many come from places of domestic violence, little money, foster care, and broken homes. Deciding they don't want that type of life, they leave home and find themselves being offered “family” in the form of a pimp. Most of these girls don’t even know what a pimp is, but they see the opportunity to obtain love and comfort – something they have been denied in the past – and they jump for it.

This type of false love is known as Stockholm Syndrome. In this situation, the victim is isolated and stripped completely of their independence, leading them to rely solely on their captor. Regressing back to a state of infancy can occur, where the victim latches on to the nearest influential adult for survival. Many prostitutes start out as children, so the attachment they form to their pimps is understandable when the pimps present themselves as the child’s “daddy.” Once formed, these bonds are hard to break.

So what can be done to keep girls from returning to a life of prostitution? Re-thinking the definition of freedom is a good place to start. Many assume that because a person is free physically, they must also be free mentally, but the truth is that these girls fight a daily struggle to stay within the new lives they are creating for themselves. Taking into consideration the trauma of circumstances this severe, it’s hardly fair to label them as weak if they fall back into prostitution. Lack of money, lack of options, and love for their pimps all play a role in this scenario. Instead of giving the cold shoulder to these victims, rehabilitation programs should be set up in order to monitor the progress of creating happy and healthy lives. GEMS is a great example of how this can be achieved. The GEMS staff offers support to victims of commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking. By using workshops to raise awareness of the issue and providing each girl with tools they need for a better life, GEMS reaches two hundred young women each year. This may only touch the tip of the iceberg, but it is progress. Rehabilitation is crucial if we want to see any type of advancement.

Profiling is Unethical and Immoral

Imagine being singled out, humiliated, and classified simply for the way you look. This problem is known as “Racial profiling”, a practice used by many forms of police agencies to supposedly prevent any crime or wrongdoing from occurring. When many think of profiling, they immediately picture a police officer pulling an African American male over to the side of the road. But profiling has become somewhat of an accepted practice and in some instances a technique listed in Airports security handbook. This skepticism or classification of individuals who might be perceived as more of a threat than other stems from the terrorist attack in New York on September 11, 2001. Some 20 men of Arab descent boarded 2 planes using fake/stolen ID’s and proceeded to hijack the planes and its passenger’s freedom. Little did the passengers now, these two planes (United Flight 175 from Boston and American Airlines Flight 11) would not be making it to their desired destination. Since the horrible attack on the World Trade Center, which claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 innocent people, Americans have been reluctant to forget what occurred on that day and who was responsible for such a tragedy. However, this attack has led to the belief that all Arab/Muslim/ or “brown” people are out to wage a war of terror against the United States, which is largely inaccurate. These actions were executed by 19 men who belong to an Islamic Extremists group(Al-Qaeda) hell bent on terrorizing the US, what many fail to see are the repercussions that have befallen those innocent travelers who are now subject to public humiliation, de-boarding, and increased vigilance/search. Legislation has been passed in some states such as Arizona, that not only allow but suggest the use of “racial profiling” as a security measure in its airports. But there is light at the end of the tunnel: The End Racial Profiling Act, has been introduced to capitol Hill in 2001, 2004, and 2007. At the hands of former President George Bush, the supposed problem of profiling was glanced at, spoken about briefly and never resolved. But now, President Barack Obama (who supported the Bill while being voted upon in congress) promises that “ending racial profiling is a priority”.

Buy Right

Many powerful boycotting campaigns have successfully impeded the growth of slavery and other forms of exploitation in the 20^th and 21^st centuries.  In the 1980s in South Africa, a powerful, multi-national divestment campaign brought the Apartheid government to its knees.  The Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida successfully used boycotts to insist that Taco Bell (2005), McDonald’s (2007), and Burger King (2008) all pay fair prices for the tomatoes they use in their fast food, which are picked by underpaid, exploited immigrant laborers who were making as little as $10,000 a year, though they were performing full-time labor.  These campaigns produce lasting changes for labor standards and help to end egregious forms of bad governance.  As good citizens, it is crucial that we keep up-to-date on these movements, as our “purchasing power” is indeed a form of power we can use to affect change in the world.

When it comes to modern day slavery, however, boycotting and divestment are not always reliable or appropriate responses to the problem.  Unfortunately, slavery exists in much of the supply chain of many of the most basic products we consume.  Products that may have been produced by slaves can be found in our cell phones, our jewelry, our clothes, our shoes, our charcoal, our rugs, our gravel, our computers… even in our sugary foods.  In 2009, the US Department of Labor produced a list of products made by child and forced labor -- it's enormous and daunting.  It would be nearly impossible to boycott all of the products that we consume that could have been made, at least in part, by slaves.  

But more importantly, typically, we cannot precisely know to what extent slavery is involved in the production of these products.  In the case of cotton, for instance, only a very very small percentage is grown or harvested by slave labor – perhaps as little as one percent.  Another consideration is that companies might be working to monitor the use of slave labor in their production chain, and so a boycott could actually punish companies that are taking steps to avoid slavery.  The chocolate industry, for instance, has worked to create a Cocoa Protocol that would create systems to ensure that the chocolate being brought to the US is slave-free.  A boycott of all cotton or all chocolate products would actually hurt the vast majority of producers – big and small businesses – that don’t use slave labor. 

So what can a conscientious consumer do?  Instead of boycotting when it is impossible to target a particular producer, company, or retailer, what we need to do is to try to buy wisely.  There are many opportunities to buy Fair Trade products, whether we are buying clothes or food or home furnishings, even at our local stores.  You can also shop at sites like Made By Survivors, which not only sell fair trade, non-slave-made products, but they intentionally employ people who have survived modern day slavery in order to support their rehabilitation and provide them with non-exploitative and lucrative work and skills.  There are ever more opportunities to purchase products that are guaranteed to be slave-free.  Recently, news came out that Emma Watson of Harry Potter fame is endorsing a clothing line that uses only fair trade materials, and she actually took a trip to Bangladesh herself to investigate the production line and to learn more about the labor that goes into the clothes she wears and puts her name on.  

Whenever we can, we should all use our purchasing power to help bring slavery to an end.

When Victims Become Traffickers | End Human Trafficking | Change.org

When Victims Become Traffickers | End Human Trafficking | Change.org