Posted on May 1, 2011 by Laurel Mazur
Human trafficking is indeed a global phenomenon leaving virtually no corner of the world unscathed. Even you and I, as we sit in front of a computer in a dorm room, coffee shop or any other location, are, most likely, indirectly affected by modern day slavery.
Think about what you ate for breakfast. Do you know exactly where it came from? How it was cultivated? By whom? For the most part, these are not questions we ask ourselves on a daily basis. Considering the prevalence of trafficked people working in industries such as agriculture however, the answers may surprise you. If there was a way to know, for a fact, that the apple sitting on your counter was touched by the hands of a slave, would this change the way you shop for everyday products? The answer may be different for everybody but, in this blog, I intend to explain how you, as an individual, can use your power as an advocate and consumer to do what you can to help fight human trafficking.
Many times, people think that in order to be a more socially responsible consumer, one must also be willing to pay more money for the products that they wish to buy. Though, in some cases, this is true, it does not have to be. One thing to keep in mind is that, because human trafficking is a deeply embedded part of the ‘shadow economy’, it may be virtually impossible to know for certain what products have or have not utilized slave labor in some way. In some cases, even the companies and stores distributing the products are not aware of this information so, at times, speculation may be all we have to go on while making our purchasing choices. In the case of food and groceries, buying local is often a good first step in assuring that slave labor is not utilized in the production of your food. Although this by no means suggests that local agricultural products are immune from slave labor, oftentimes there are more resources available, through specific stores, to find the location and details of the farm from which the food came. In this way, if you were really interested, you could visit or call the source farm of your food, as opposed to having to fly halfway across the world to investigate a given product.
Another way to use your power as a consumer to fight trafficking is through purchasing Fair Trade certified products. Though there is no absolute guarantee that these products have not been touched by slave labor in some part of the production process, according to the Fair Trade website ‘forced child and slave labor are strictly prohibited’ (www.transfairusa.org). Fair Trade certification is especially useful in identifying potentially slave-free products such as coffee and chocolate, two industries notorious for the use of slave labor.
Identifying the presence of practices of slavery used in clothing and manufactured items is an even more complicated issue. Unlike a tomato moving from vine to table, most manufactured items go through many different steps before they are available for purchase by consumers such as you and me. At times, it is virtually impossible to track the existence, or lack thereof, of slavery through every process of a product’s metamorphosis. For example, before the shirt you are wearing was available at the store, the material, say cotton, had to be cultivated and harvested; this cotton had to be woven in order for it take form as a shirt; the logo, design or slogan had to be put on through another process and it is likely that each of these processes was carried out by different workers in different locations. I liken this situation to the guarantee on the back of many beauty products relating to animal testing, ‘the finished product was not tested on animals’. The same holds true for many manufactured products. Though slave labor was not directly used to transform your shirt into its final and purchasable form, you may never know if slavery has been used at any step in the process. A good place to start in determining which brands to buy from is to visit the website, www.free2work.org. This is a unique project, taken on by the Not for Sale campaign, to ‘grade’ popular brands of clothing, food and other products with regards to human trafficking and modern day slavery. Though an ‘A’ grade does not necessarily mean that the company operates with a guarantee of no slave labor, it does suggest that the individual brand or product considered has made an effort to reduce the risk of slave labor through appropriate measures, certification, etc. As is the case in almost every field relating to human trafficking, any tangible and concerted effort is considered an improvement in a field as disparate and massive as that of modern day slavery.
As a final note, none of abovementioned methods of being a socially responsible consumer are entirely foolproof. If human trafficking can infiltrate every geographical location on the planet, it also has the ability to infiltrate the economic and consumer workings as well.
I hope this blog leaves you with some ideas on how to use your power as a consumer to do what you can to fight trafficking. I hope you all have a great summer and I look forward to providing more insight in the fall.
About Laurel Mazur
Laurel is a junior at the University of Denver studying International Studies and Russian. She is a research associate at the Human Trafficking Clinic at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies and has developed a great interest in the subject of human trafficking through this experience. Laurel intends to continue her work in international studies to pursue a PhD and hopes to focus on the subject of international law.
