Welcome to the professional website and personal weblog of Jeremy Del Rio. Whether you're a client, friend, or curious onlooker, please don't stay a spectator. Engage the conversation. Your contributions matter here.
« What Brian McLaren wants every pastor in America to do about evangelism | Home | Time to be vulnerable »
Would you knowingly support slavery?
By Jeremy | November 15, 2007
Perhaps you don't remember that Snickers bar I sneaked last week. But maybe you can recall the chocolate milk you served your kid with breakfast. Or the triple chocolate chunk ice cream indulgence from this weekend. Or the ungodly pounds of chocolate distributed to emancipated American children two weeks ago on Halloween.
We were inadvertently supporting child slavery.
My friend Steve Bussey clued me in this morning.
_______________________
There are 27 million people living in slavery today.
That's more modern slaves than were extracted from Africa during 400 years of the trans-Atlantic slave trade that William Wilberforce abolished 200 years ago.
People trafficking is the fastest growing trade in the world today. As you read this blog, people are being bought and sold.
One of the industries most directly affected by the modern slave trade is CHOCOLATE. More than 12,000 child slaves harvest cocoa in West Africa's Ivory Coast, the nation that produces more than half of the world's cocoa. Yet popular chocolate brands like Nestle's and Hershey's refuse to guarantee that their products are traffick free. That means that the cocoa that was used in the Twix and Snickers and Nestle Crunch bars we ate this week may have been (and likely were) harvested by child slaves, held against their will in shackles.
Here's one way to get involved.
Stop the Traffik
Topics: chocolate, compassion, economics, justice, politics, slavery | 2 Comments »
November 15th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Great stuff.
I heard about the chocolate slave trade stuff in February of this year and have since given it up, except when I’ve had the opportunity for fair trade chocolate.
If we’d all simply take action we could stop this immediately.
November 19th, 2007 at 8:51 am
Hi Jeremy. Thanks for passing on word on your blog. This is such a devastating justice issue – particularly when so many of us living in America have not been aware of what is going on before our very eyes!
Part of me wonders whether or not chocolate is too close to home, though? I pray that the guilty pleasures we enjoy in life do not override our desire allow a child to enjoy even the most basic of pleasures in life – like freedom.