AIBU to ask how many slaves are working for you?

[MiniTheMinx]

Discovered today that I have 55 slaves working for me. I have clothes, electrical goods, food and other goods in my home that have been made using slavery.

There are over 27 million slaves in the world today, many of them children. They exist in all parts of the world.

To discover how many slaves you have working for you you can do a survey here madeinafreeworld.com/ at the top of the page there is a link that says "how many slaves work for you"

[wannaBe]

I read an article on fairtrade once - it's a complete misnoma because the fairtrade farmers are tied to the companies - they are allowed to sell to no-one else because of watertight contracts. so fairtrade is no less unethical...

[garlicbaguette]

I'm not surprised about that, wannaBe. If a company has committed itself to operating in tighter circumstances - probably having to sell at higher prices and shoulder smaller margins - and forked out for improved working conditions, healthcare and education for the suppliers, obviously they won't want Slavery Inc. barging in and taking their supply away from them!

[Jingleflobba]

So what do we do?
If we boycott companies that use 'slave' labour the company stops using that supplier. Potentially hundreds of people out of work and the big company just moves onto another supplier who also uses unethical working practices. There will always be someone ready to jump into the breach using cheap methods.
Am off to do the test now.

[purplequiche]

Its interesting how people assume that if you buy British you are not relying on slave labour, the Morcambe cockle pickers anyone?

I work in the anti-trafficking/ slavery field and recently heard of over 30 slaves being kept as 'chicken catchers' on a British farm. According to one report:

"It has been reported that the catching teams worked on farms supplying eggs to McDonald's, Tesco, Asda, Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury's. They also worked on farms supplying Noble's Happy Egg brand" www.farminguk.com/news/Arrests-in-poultry-gangmaster-raid_24466.html

We also have children and young men being exploited in the construction trade, kids exploited in restaurants/ catering, Vietnamese kids kept as slaves growing cannabis and in nail bars to name just a few.. trafficking and slavery is not something which just happens overseas.

[MiniTheMinx]

I thought the graphics were very good, it was entertaining in it's own right and whilst the survey is not indepth and is very general I think it draws peoples attention to the fact that so many people are still being exploited as slaves. I thought slavery was made illegal 150 years ago. And that our consumption and the greed within the markets drives this. And yes it seems to be an American site so it assumes American patterns of consumption and quite disconcerting for me, Clinton got behind it when it was launched, not sure if that is good.

I am going to sign up to take action, what ever that involves??? I know that one of their actions is to get consumers to write to companies asking about the chain and how they ensure they are ethically sourcing.

I read The Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy by Noreen Hertz a little while ago, where she concludes that because the corporates and the party of Wall street now have so much power, the only way we see democracy working is in how people shop and their interaction directly with businesses. I think the boycott against Tescos during the DWP lies over Workfare shows that consumers can have quite a lot of clout.

[MiniTheMinx]

X posted with purplequiche thank you purple, interesting and very worthy job and heart breaking too. If we have kid's being exploited in catering here, how come this isn't known. What can ordinary people do that would really help?

[purplequiche]

Mini I think there are several reasons why the public are not informed about/ don't recognise these issues:

• The numbers are quite small, there are estimated to be 200 children trafficked into the UK every year (for various forms of exploitation, so catering, other forms of forced labour, sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, begging, street crime etc), these manifest as small isolated cases dotted all over the country.
  

• We (as a nation) are so paranoid about border control that the media choose to protray these kids as illegal immigrants. So if you watch those fly on the walls documentaries on Living for example, where they show sniffer dogs jumping into the back of lorries at Calais it will be framed as pesky immigrants wanting to come here to work in the black economoy when in fact many will be children who are groomed, coerced and forced here by 'agents'. Its pretty standard for the girls (and some boys) to be raped on route, the kids who are picked up often present with PTSD and other mental health problems, some will have been orphaned street kids with clear cognitive issues but UKBA and the Police often fail to recognise their own child protection duties and treat them as criminals. There is one case in a regional newspaper at the minute that I could absolutely blow the top off if I were allowed to.
  

• I go all over the country delivering training on this issue but we specifically target professionals as these kids are so hidden and isolated that members of the public are unlikely to come across them, there is therefore little value in targetting the public. We focus more on social workers, police, UKBA, health visitors, walk-in centres, abortion clinics, travel and tourism agencies etc.

[GrendelsMum]

Thank you PurpleQuiche.

There was an excellent Radio 4 Woman's Hour dram highlighting some of these issues lately.

[Justforlaughs]

I tried really hard but couldn't get it to work properly, scored 100 slaves! but I know that wasn't accurate, I couldn't even enter my children properly. It was interesting though, thanks for sharing. It is very easy to forget where our produce/ christmas presents etc come from.

[Ferngirl]

I scored 92!

I'm sure it was because of my wardrobe, but its all second hand and from charity shops!

Loved the graphics though.