Hi all,
at a recent men’s weekend we were challenged to think about what great social justice issues the church has won over the last few decades. Back around the great awakenings fantastic social justice issues were dealt with. The abolition of slavery, child labour, education for children, worker’s conditions in industrial factories, public health, the old age pension, all these were great achievements of the church in the last few hundred years.
Now, other than the everlasting battle against poverty in the 3rd world which in many cases involves things on a regional block national government and international political level, what more local social justice issues can we knock over?
Missionary Dr Max Collison explained that if we can work together, we can stop the child labour of 200 thousand kids in the ivory coast and the child slavery of 12,000 kids kidnapped for slavery on….. cocoa farms!
Yes, just like Edmund from Narnia, we have betrayed other children ‘for sweeties’. Twelve thousand other children in fact!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_in_cocoa_production
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6533405.stm
And the truly disgusting thing about this is that, according to Max, the chocolate companies make so much margin on the cocoa trade that they wouldn’t even have to raise the price of their chocolate to pay proper wages! This is just rampant corporate greed at work!
Anyway, around Easter 2010 Cadburys are starting to do one of their lines of chocolate as “Fair Trade”. Read here about how they were flooded with flowers in gratitude from long term activists against child slavery.
http://www.fairtrade.com.au/news/207
Progress against child slavery in the cocoa countries is on the move with developments like this. We can help create a tipping point and knock this terrible issue off our ‘to do list’. Kids are slaves so we can have a little tasty treat. How can your conscience cope with that without writing a letter or doing something about it?
Do you think our Sydney Anglican churches should cause a media stir by putting up “Christians buy Cadburys chocolate” posters outside our churches? That should propel the other big chocolate manufacturers into action! I know that there are already other lines of fair trade chocolate available, but this would be both congratulating a mammoth chocolate corporation for ethical progress AND a challenge to the other mammoth chocolate corporations. Anyone know the Sydney Anglican’s involved in gearing up those church posters?
Would a public poster campaign like this would see Peter Jensen and other big Anglican figures being interviewed about why we’ve sided with Cadbury’s and draw media attention to kids suffering so we can have a treat? How do we progress on this?
How else would you run a public campaign?
Anyway, Max also urges us to individual activism as well. From his email letter to all at the conference:
Hi
1. At the Men for Christ conference you expressed along with many others an strong interest in protesting about the horrific conditions in which chocolate is harvested in the Ivory Coast. I am supplying here a copy as a suggestion a letter and that I am sending myself.
So this is a possible format for a letter to some one who could make a change in the situation. Say send it to your local member or to any other organisation you feel could affect a change in this cruel trade. I would suggest you use this as a guide only and so change it into your words, the more changes the better. It’s fairly mild in its current form. Feel free to step it up. Can I also suggest you write this as a letter rather than an email, letters appear to have more impact. Why not send 2 or 3 letters to different people and what about enlisting others to write also?
You can find the details for correspondence to your local member or others from the following web sites.
Try this site http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/web/common.nsf/V3SearchSite?open&Area=Members
http://www.aph.gov.au/house/members/mi-elctr.asp2. here’s a video link - to a video that won an anticocoa slavery contest at our church this year. You may like to pass it on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deQ7rJtciIg
3. you may like to formulate a prayer and put it on the wall where you shave as a reminder to pray. If you do, please let me know and I’ll encourage others.
4. if you want to get off the email list, or a friend on to it - just let me know.
Regardsmax collison
6 September 2009
Recipient Name
Title
Address
4321 First Street
Anytown, NSW 2155Dear
I am offended that the sale of chocolate in NSW allows the multinational confectionary manufacturers to maintain a system that forces cocoa farmers in the Ivory Coast to use child labour. In effect this means when I purchase almost any chocolate product in this state I am supporting child slavery.
Australians do not approve of slavery we do not approve of people who profit from slavery. We are rightly revolted by the thought of child slavery. Yet all the chocolate companies in this country with minor exceptions profit from the sweat of stolen children who are not paid for their labour and are regularly beaten.
The evidence for this is well know it is clearly documented by the research done for the US Senate and the International Labour Organization. In the Ivory Coast it is estimated that close to 200,000 children are cocoa labourers. But more appallingly there are an estimated 12,000 children currently being used as slaves. Certainly the international chocolate companies know these facts and largely do not dispute them. US Senate investigated this and two senators exposed this crime. When world attention was drawn to this atrocity in 2001 they signed an agreement which is now called the Harkin-Engel protocol and promised to act. This voluntary agreement promised to end the worst of these wicked child labour practices by 2005.
However since the chocolate companies promised to do this and signed the agreement little has in fact changed, the world still eats chocolate that is largely harvested by forced child labour. More critically the owners of the chocolate plantations do to get a fair return for their product. Those in the Ivory coast have to resort to child slavery to survive.
There is a large amount of information that supports and gives the detail on this at these web sites.
Cocoa Protocol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia13 Jun 2009 ... The Harkin-Engel Protocol, commonly referred to as the Cocoa Protocol ... Harkin and Engel worked with the cocoa and chocolate industry to…en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoa_Protocol
Harkin-Engel Protocol on Chocolate and Child Slavery Expires on July 130 Jun 2005 ... San Francisco, CA—July 1, 2005 will mark the expiration of the Harkin-Engel Protocol, a voluntary protocol agreed to by the chocolate ..www.globalexchange.org/update/press/3227.html
HARKIN, ENGEL, CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS, WORK TO ELIMINATE CHILD ...30 Oct 2007 ... In 2001, Harkin and Engel worked with the chocolate and cocoa industries to develop a framework for the cocoa industry to eliminate the ..harkin.senate.gov/pr/p.cfm?i=286485
I am asking that you raise this wicked practice of the by chocolate industry companies in the NSW Parliament. I ask that the NSW government make a formal protest to the large chocolate companies about their continued failure to right this obvious wrong.
Sincerely yours,
Name
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