Cocoa Protocol: Helping to End Child Labor in West Africa

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/09/09/RIGHTS_Kevin_Bales_on_Ending_Slavery_and_Human_Traf...

Kevin Bales, author of The Slave Next Door, discusses how the Cocoa Protocol is helping to eradicate child labor in West Africa's cocoa industry. "It's the first time in history that an entire industry has decided to take complete moral responsibility, and financial, for their product chain," says Bales.

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Kevin Bales is presenting at Momentum 2009 on the Rights plenary: At the heart of our invocation of rights lies a belief in our shared humanity. Our society can reach its fullest potential only if everyone is at the table. How can we enact a truly inclusive social contract?

This plenary explores how to confront and dismantle punitive policies that alienate those outside centers of power.

Bales' momentum: "We can end slavery, the laws are in place, the economics work, there is no debate -- everyone agrees it should end. All it takes is a good hard shove and it goes over the brink of its own extinction. Imagine being able to give our kids a world without slavery." - Momentum Conference

Going undercover to meet slaves and slaveholders, Kevin Bales exposed how modern slavery penetrates the global economy and flows into the things we buy. Named by Utne Reader as a "visionary who is changing your world;" and the originator of one of "100 World-Changing Discoveries" by the Association of British Universities, he is a leading abolitionist in the anti-slavery movement. In 2001 he founded Free the Slaves, the American sister organization of the UKs Anti-Slavery International, the worlds oldest human rights group. In eight years it has helped to liberate thousands of slaves in India, Nepal, Haiti, Ghana, Brazil, Ivory Coast, and Bangladesh, and worked with them to build new lives of dignity.

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[eirefrance]

Wait, I thought raising the tax rate 3% for the immensely wealthy was slavery. Thats what all these libertarians keep telling me.

[funkalunatic]

Yeah, maybe it's like that in magical libertarian fantasy land, but in the real world, you have "free market" states awash in arms that are trying to eliminate slavery (Ghana), but can't because the economics of Western civilization paying to enslave children for 12-hour days are stronger than the government of a "developing" nation.

[dayspeace]

this is very interesting video. yeah it seems that the idea presented is commendable. hope this would be fully realized.

[kurozaki45]

@eirefrance lets make you a slave

[Bristow42]

Course they know.

[Erverino]

@eirefrance You don't understand because you don't know what it's like man - being rich and loosing a little bit of it, you just have no idea.

[deltauniformbravo]

Donate, or don't condone it. It's illegal in developed countries for a reason.

[PLISKEN12]

would u rather that children live off the dumpsite?child labor in third world countries is different matter than rich countries,its a necessity!

[kevintype]

16242T, thanks for searching out that article by Christian Parenti and letting us know about it here.

As a result of reading it, I'm much better informed now, and better motivated to avoid any and all chocolate products unless I know more about the labor practices of their suppliers.

The large scale chocolate importers will need to do a hell of a lot more if they want to be seen as conscientious corporations that can be trusted to regulate themselves.

[kevintype]

16242T, my question wasn't a setup to reveal any vast knowledge on the subject. I really just hoped you would be more specific about your comment. Thank you for clarifying.

I believe it is possible to find out whether there is real progress being made in the fight against slavery. But I haven't read Bales' book and know nothing about his reputation as a researcher or activist. Thus I don't feel qualified to say how accurate his particular statements might be.

[eirefrance]

blah blah blah In a free market, slavery is not the most efficient way blah blah blah. Thats why slavery ends because govts outlaw it. But it wouldn'ty be truthadvocate without some sort of revisionist fairy-tale history.

[kevintype]

16242T, which part do you not believe?

Do you not believe that some of the former slaves have been freed and are now in schools? Do you not believe there were ever any slaves at all? Or is it something else you don't believe?