Cocoa Protocol: Helping to End Child Labor in West Africa
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Complete video at: fora.tv 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. ----- 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 ...
Video Rating: 4 / 5
Cocoa Tea was one of the few early dancehall stars to carve out a consistent, productive career as the genre evolved over the years. His cool-toned, laid-back vocals were perfect for sweet, smooth lovers rock, and gave him a distinct identity amid his more aggressive peers. Still, he was also capable of toughening up his sound on his cultural protest material, which was often sharply perceptive. Tea was born Calvin Scott on September 3, 1959, in Rocky Point, a small town in Jamaica's Clarendon parish. He sang in his church and school choirs as a youth, and made his first recordings for producer Willie Francis in 1974 at the mere age of 14; one single, "Searching in the Hills," was released under his given name, but went nowhere. He spent the next few years working as a racehorse jockey, then as a fisherman; during the latter occupation, he began to rediscover his musical ambitions, performing with the traveling sound systems that passed through local dancehalls. In 1983, he moved to Kingston and adopted the performing name Cocoa Tea, after the Jamaican term for hot chocolate (later alternate spellings would include Coco Tea and Coco T). He soon met top dancehall producer Henry "Junjo" Lawes, and recorded a series of hit singles that included "Rocking Dolly," "I Lost My Sonia," "Informer," and "Can't Stop Cocoa Tea." His first album, Weh Dem a Go Do...Can't Stop Coco Tea, was released in 1985 and compiled many of his previous successes (a slightly different version ...
Video Rating: 5 / 5
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would u rather that children live off the dumpsite?child labor in third world countries is different matter than rich countries,its a necessity!
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.
Your response prompted me to do a search and I found an interesting article by Christian Parenti (just google that with Kevin Bales.)
From a profit point of view, if one fills a freshly built American charity school with 150 children, it looks good for the camera. Then no one will bother to search for the 150,000 little invisible ones. (Just an example.)
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.
I know that slavery is real. I don’t really believe that humanity is this industry’s priority. All colossal industries hire marketing firms that will construct scenerios to make the companies look clean. I’ve personally seen how ruthless they can be while pretending to be helping. Can these guys really be different? If you know something I don’t then go ahead and say it. I would much rather hear that people are doing good things but only as long as it’s the whole truth and not just another lie.
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.
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?
I know there are some people that are paranoid. They believe conspiracy theories that are extremely far fetched. But I don’t think the average legal gun owner is paranoid. The fact is murder & rape do happen in the U.S. A person doesn’t have to be paranoid to equip themselves with a tool that can protect their life & the life of their loved ones. It is your opinion that they don’t need a gun. Most of the time you don’t. But having it when you do is a life saver & it discourages crime in general.
I’m not saying a single handgun can stand up to a nuke. But it would be extremely difficult for a military to conquer an armed population that had no central government. The military would get bogged down in guerrilla warfare. If they did use a nuclear bomb there wouldn’t be any slaves to capture.
It should be naturally painful to enslave people. As an analogy, kids mess with regular ant hills all the time. But once they experience a nest of red ants, they’ll never mess with it again.
I used to think so also, but the government *ooh-SCARY* has nukes and armies, do you?
I very much doubt it LoL
Government is not the problem, the problem is “average Joe’s” walking around carrying guns they dont need because of fear of each other.
That is a very sad state to live in :(
Who went out to collect statistics on slaves and how did they do it? Questionaire? Telephone survey? Raise your hand if you keep slaves?
Sounds fishy. I don’t believe him.
I highly doubt that the people were awash in arms when they were forced into slavery. The government has weapons. The slave masters have weapons. I want the average Joe to have weapons so he & his children cannot be enslaved.
By “free market” I mean no state. You can call it magical libertarian fantasy land. I prefer the term “free society” or “Voluntaryism.” Hopefully humans are intelligent enough to one day achieve it.
That was a situation in which the U.S. government made it profitable to own slaves. Otherwise, I don’t think forcing people into slavery is less costly than hiring workers. I don’t think workers are likely to steal. If they’re caught they lose their job. A handful of cotton won’t get them far. If they’re mining diamonds, both workers & slaves would be more likely to steal. A slave could buy safe passage to freedom. It would be risky, but he has very little to lose, & much to gain.
While it’s true that slavery can’t exist without the laws protecting the owner, even during the slave years of the US was it less costly to hire workers rather than buying workers. However slave owners simply didn’t like the idea of hiring people since they thought the kind of people who might work for them, mostly poor people obviously, might also steal the cotton or whatever they were growing because they might need and/or want more money than the landowner paid him, a slave did not need money
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.
“and slavery is the most efficient way of making it…” In a free market, slavery is not the most efficient way. But if there is a state that enforces slavery, returns escaped fugitives to their slave masters, disarms the people, etc. then and only then is it possible for slavery to be more efficient. In the long term it’s not. Slaves tend to rise up against their masters, and have every right to do so.
YOU DIDN’T KNOW, YA RIGHT.
It’s like he’s purposefully avoiding discussion of the real problem. When you but a product, you pay for everything that goes into making it. When millions buy a product for which they can’t see and don’t care what goes into making it, and slavery is the most efficient way of making that product, then OF COURSE there will be slavery. And in fact, there still IS in cocoa production.
well yeah. if most don’t have slaves than they’ll all pitch in to get rid of the ones that do. what’s so innovative about that? It’s what makes the world go round.
and then you get the consequences of this debt-fueled economy around the world. From the environment to the unemployeds by the millions in poor countries because fiat money bubbles pop devastating the world. All is wrecked by a fiat-money-debt-propelled economy.
This was an awesome video, fora. This is how to do it. The modesty at the end just rubs it in.
Now to reduce the other slave trades world wide.
Durchbrechen writes:
“There’s slaverty for US citizens. They’re slaves of their corporations and the tiny part of their country that gets a shameful amount of money while their countryman have not even basic health. They get lured to buy through credit that makes slaves of them for all their lives or condemn them to bankruptcy. The same credit going around the world intoxitating it. Get real.”
Such a slave trade for the privileged.
Wait, I thought raising the tax rate 3% for the immensely wealthy was slavery. Thats what all these libertarians keep telling me.
offensive ? Debt based economy is killing people all over the world, included the developing world, because of the economic destruction.
Debt and fiat money economy (the US ECONOMIC MODEL !!) is a monster that is showing is destructive effect all over the world. If you can’t see the real problems you’ll keep destroying the world.
Which companies? Which companies, which companies, which companies?? Let us know who to boycott!
Globalizacion es una cosa, transculturizacion sin aprenderla primero es un desastre. Great video. Me like the music*
Good point.
Great song!
boss track!!!
Bodo Riddim; Song also available on Cocoa Tea Album: Biological Warfare by Minor7Flat5