Issue 41
click on headlines to read the full text
|
|
|
 
Choc Shock
We’ve just finished off our chocolate Easter eggs and Mother’s Day is just around the corner. What will we buy her? Chocolate seems like a good idea. Or maybe not.
 
 US chocolate industry agrees to end forced labour on cocoa farms
The Free the Slaves NGO in the United States has successfully won a commitment from the Chocolate Manufacturers Association to end 'slavery, serfdom, and debt bondage in the growing and processing of West African cocoa beans and their derivative products'. - antislavery.org
Mainstream UK retailer switches to slavery-free chocolate
Anti-Slavery International has welcomed the announcement of large community retailer The Co-op that it will switch its entire own-brand chocolate bars to Fairtrade chocolate in 2400 stores across the UK, bringing fairly traded cocoa firmly into the mainstream market. - antislavery.org
Cocoa Industry moves against child labour
Chocolate-manufacturing companies, NGOs and other stakeholders have set up the International Cocoa Initiative, an international foundation to eliminate child labour in West Africa's cocoa industry. - allAfrica.com
 
My farm helps make Fairtrade chocolate
Rijayatu lives in a tiny village in Ghana. Her parents' farm produces cocoa which helps to make Fairtrade chocolate bars for shops in the UK. - C-BBC
 
They are eating my flesh
"If I had to say something to them it would not be nice words. They buy something that I suffer to make. They are eating my flesh," said Victor, a slave in West Africa's cocoa fields, in a TV documentary. - Toronto Whorlpool
 
 Global Exchange Chocolate Campaign
Global Exchange is a US organisation set up to communicate the social justice issues behind the activities of Fair Trade initiatives. The Chocolate Campaign sub-site includes activities for students at various levels. There is a special pages devoted to market leaders M&Ms/Mars that includes analysis, quotes ('anytime they loaded you with bags and you fell while carrying them, they beat you'), and suggestions for action.
 
Pray for children who do not know what it is to play
We pray for children exploited in the workplace. For their safety and for legislation to protect and rescue them. We pray for healing and restoration of childhood for those who have had it stolen away and do not know what it is to play. - World Wide Day of Prayer for Children at Risk (7 June 2003)
 
The Children of Russia SBS TV, 8:30 pm, Sunday 4 May
Children evacuated from Spain during the 1936-39 Civil War, to Russia, where they were welcomed at heroes at first but eventually moved to Central Asia and forced to work and endure appalling conditions.
|
|
|
Subscribe
|
Caritas Latest
Staff from Caritas Australia arrived in the Solomon Islands Friday, August
1.
Mr Jack de Groot, National Director of Caritas Australia, said Caritas Australia supports the regional intervention in the Solomon Islands, while expressing caution that a blanket amnesty is not introduced which allows offenders to go unpunished.
Caritas Australia has released a position paper calling on the Australian government to rethink the proposal to ignore serious crimes committed in the Solomon Islands before its intervention commences.
"Justice is a precondition for permanent reconciliation and peace. Amnesties do not provide justice," Caritas Australia spokesman, Jamie Isbister, Acting National Director said today.
The paper also highlights the growing crisis caused by the increasing number of small arms concentrating in Melanesia, particularly in the Solomon Islands. See the Policy
The objectives of Australia's intervention in the Solomon Islands need to be clarified. For Australia's aims to be justifiable, there should be commitment to the Solomon Islanders which includes the elimination of guns and the flow of weapons, says the latest Caritas Policy brief.
See the Policy
|
Search
|
|
