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31.7.09

Pop culture is catching on.

Last night when I came home from work, my roommate was watching an episode of Law and Order, which is in itself unusual. What was particularly interesting about this episode is that it was about the legal struggles and snafus that come with child slavery in the US. The episode covered a kid who had been "adopted" from Haiti, and was now implicated in a murder. Through a maze of legal issues, and lack of evidence, the episode ended with a sort of a "shrug, there's nothing we can do" attitude. Highlights from it can be found here.

Because I am interested in the ways that pop culture latches on to social issues (see the environment suddenly becoming trendy), I find it interesting that so many dramatic portrayals of child trafficking in popular culture result in that sort of "shrug" attitude, as though there is nothing we can do because the problem is simply too huge.

But there are things we can do, even if we are not lawyers or detectives in New York City. For one thing, we can stop supporting those areas of popular culture that portray child trafficking as "funny."

People do this? Yes, there are some who see modern day slavery and people being trafficked into the US as a source of humor. For example, the popular, Emmy-nominated TV show, Family Guy, features a spot of humor with Quagmire, the resident pervert of the show. He leaves his house unguarded for some reason, and we're shown a bunch of Chinese women sneaking off the property and running away, a clear reference to trafficking. What is disheartening is that this is supposed to be funny.

So what can we do? As imbibers of the pop culture, as the ones pop culture is directed at, we can let the companies that produce these shows know that we will not tolerate such a cavalier attitude toward such a real issues by writing letters, boycotts, protests, what have you. The point is that companies respond if they see bad press or a poor revenue stream. We do have the power to change things.

20.7.09

Taken, Traded, and Sold

"We are not finding victims in the United States because we are not looking for them." - The State Department's Adviser on the issue of Trafficking
A number of movies have come up on the market lately about the idea of modern day slavery and sex trafficking. One theme of all these movies, however, is the idea of a child or young person being forcibly pulled from a street by their house, from their Paris hotel room, from the home they were raised. Force is always how the action begins.

And yes, this is a very real world situation. Often, women and children are forced into such a position, taken away from their parents and family and unable to find a way out.

However, this is not the only way that such events happen. H'wood would have us believe that the sex trade is one that is operated by sheer force, by the capture of people off the streets. This, however, is not always the case. Often, women enter the trade somewhat accidentally - they are promised a better opportunity, a chance to make money to get their family out of a bad situation, a job to work when they are flown over to America. Once they are separated from their friends and family, in a strange country where they likely do not speak the common language, they are coerced into a trade where they see no way out. It is an entire system based on trickery and deception, rather than force. And it is this type of system that is most common, not the ones where people are forcibly taken.

Earlier this week, I was riding up to Dallas with a friend and we were discussing this trip to India, and the idea of human trafficking. My friend informed me that she knows someone who had been trafficked into the United States. He is from Honduras, and when he first came to the US, he was promised a job with a friend of a friend, so he moved on up. This job, while it did exist, did not exist in the form that he had been told. They were forced to work on (I believe) a farm up in Illinois, with very little accomodation, and very little freedom. I was not told how this friend was able to get out of this situation, but he is now free and living on his own in the States.

Not all these people are so lucky.

Our first step is to be aware of the problem.
Our second is to acknowledge that this problem is widespread.
And our third is to act. Make our governments aware that this problem exists, that they need to do more to crack down on the issue, that they need to make stopping modern day slavery a priority. It is only through a movement of the citizenry, a movement toward the intolerance of such behavior in our fellow human beings, an intolerance of this terrible treatment of our neighbors, that this issue will be solved.

This is our generation's battle.

If you happen to see Taken, or Trade or any one of the number of movies that have come up about sex trafficking and slavery, do not view it merely as entertainment. The problem is real and the problem is here. We must open our eyes and our hearts to the hurting of the world.

16.7.09

Sell the kidney or the child?

This Thursday post will be a little brief. I just wanted to bring to your attention this article I found on CNN.com, about Mohammed Iqbal in Pakistan, who was forced - by poverty, by pressing medical bills - to make the decision between selling his children or selling his kidney to pay his landlord.

This is not the first instance of a man having to make that decision, nor will it be the last. Because human trafficking is such a lucrative business (slavery is the world's second largest illegal enterprise, second only to drug trafficking), it has become an economic decision over a human rights one on whether it would be more beneficial to sell a part of oneself or one's progeny. It is terrifying that we have allowed such a world to come about that even makes such a pressing decision possible.

A few months after Slumdog Millionaire won Best Picture at the Academy Awards, rumors came about that the family of one of its young stars - Rubina Ali, who played the youngest Latika (pictured above) - was attempting to sell her to make money - $300,000, in fact. And now news has come up that the slums in which they lived were bulldozed in a government effort to clean up the city, which is, in of itself, rather ridiculous.

It should not take award winning directors with lots of money swooping in to force people to pay attention to this problem. The plight of the children alone is heart breaking, and we should not stand idly by.

Education is key to solving the issue. Please follow the links in the sidebar, learn what you can, educate yourself, and spread the word. Human trafficking and modern day slavery can stop now.

8.7.09

Okay, so now what?


Faceless International's first goal is that people should be aware of what's happening in the world, what sort of atrocities are being committed on a day to day basis to produce the imports that we in the West take for granted.

So we learn.

We learn that our coffee is grown on plantations that don't pay their workers a living wage.
We learn that our tea is created in much the same way, without equal exchange.
We learn that our chocolate uses cocoa from farms that employ trafficked children.
We learn that our tennis shoes were sewn together by hands smaller than our own.

And so on.

We gain all this awareness about our world, and then we ask ourselves the question: so now what?

The one who was raised in the dog eat dog (or man enslaves man) world of the West understands this discrepancy in trade and says to himself: "Well, that's the nature of capitalism. One company survives and develops while its competitors die out."

The capitalist looks at the fair trade market and says that it's not economically a good choice - fair trade ultimately costs more to distribute, making prices higher in order to make a profit for the retailer. It doesn't make sense not to try to do something as cheaply as possible in order to make the largest profit out of it.

Take CDs for example: It takes a factory worker overseas a few minutes and less than a dollar of actual production to produce a CD, which is then shipped to its market and people shell out $15 or even $20 to buy it. That's mark up, and that's the nature of capitalism.

Having grown up in a capitalist market, I honestly don't have a clue what anything but this sort of market looks like. But I can't help but have a feeling of uneasiness with a market that is now functioning to keep the developing countries where they are, and help the developed countries grow richer. A system that forces people into slavery, that tells them that this is their only option, a system that doesn't allow the person creating the product to make enough money to buy it - there is something wrong with that.

So what can you and I do? Living in privileged America, it seems that there's not much we can do to change the way the market works. But then again, our American spirit also believes that with a small group of people standing up for what we believe, we know that we can start a movement, we can make a change.

The first step is learning. The second step is action.

Faceless' website has some good steps to actions that you can do in 3 minutes, 10 minutes, a day, 2 weeks.

One of those steps of action is to understand that we can use the currently corrupt capitalist system to create one that works to serve people on both ends of trade better. Goods get supplied because there is a demand for them. By purchasing fair trade goods, by creating a demand for such goods, we increase the supply. We fund fair trade markets around the world, helping fair trade companies and practices to develop. If the demand becomes large enough, we can turn capitalism around.

This is not altogether impossible, though it is challenging.

For example, when I'm craving tea, it's often a hassle to go about getting fair trade tea to make sure it was produced in a socially conscious manner. In fact, I will admit, right now I am drinking a cup of tea that is not fair trade because four weeks ago I was running low and it was "too much trouble" to go out to the World Hunger Relief Farm to shop in their Equal Exchange store.

But today, after reading the stories of those who are trafficked into slavery to produce our goods, after hearing about the children around the world who are not given the same opportunities as my small cousins, simply because of where they were born...I have made a commitment to purchasing only fairly traded coffee, tea, and chocolate.

And you can make this commitment, too. This means looking for the Fair Trade Certified Seal on packages of coffee and tea, researching which retailers carry them, and buying them - creating a demand.

This is but one small step in the process. Take a look at Faceless' site, figure out some steps you can take right now in your community. And then go out, do it.

"And over all these virtues, put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity." - Colossians 3:14


After I wrote this post, I was listening to Derek Webb's new CD Stockholm Syndrome, which was released yesterday. It's quite good so far, and has a song that is particularly relevant here. The lyrics have been posted over in the sidebar, and it is available through Derek Webb's site for $8, and it is well worth it.

A Good Blog to Follow:

The organization Stop The Traffik (based in the UK) has a great blog about issues in human trafficking. Please read some of it and educate yourself on the atrocities that are happening daily.

STOP THE TRAFFIK.

I will do a full length blog entry tomorrow.

Thanks for reading!

6.7.09

CONFIRMED!

I received word from Faceless Int'l tonight that I will be traveling to India with them in December. Huzzah!

This means my PayPal is now open for donation - you can find the link in the sidebar.

Thank you very much for all your prayerful support. I look forward to updating you with pictures and information leading up to the trip, and coming back with tons of stories to tell.

2.7.09

Fair Trade and Free Trade

One of the issues that Faceless International supports is the idea of fair trade - i.e., paying workers a fair living wage for their area, for the work they produce. Faceless does this through partnerships with organizations like the Emancipation Network (link in the sidebar), which sells fairly produced products and coffee.

Since I am no economist, I thought I would let this article I found from the General United Methodist Church explain for me:

"Free trade aims to allow the world market to operate without any constraints by eliminating such things as tarriffs, quotas and investment barriers (restrictions or limitations on companies investing in foreign countries). Today's trade agreements take various forms. These include bilateral free trade agreements (FTA) between two countries and larger multilateral agreements such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), which is an agreement among 135 nations. [...] Free trade agreements can be beneficial. They provide access to one another's markets and allow countries to concentrate on the production of goods they are best capable of producing. [...] world trade has the potential to provide growth for the world's poorest countries, but that potential is not being realized. There are many reasons for this. Some include the lack of economic power of the poor countries, which results in a lack of bargaining power when the trade negotiations are being conducted."
The article goes on to say that "Despite the growth in free trade agreements, 'low income countries account for more than 40% of the [world] population, but less than 3% of the world trade .'"

What essentially happens in "free" trade is that the agreements end up being unfair toward the developing country that has little power in negotiating trade agreements with the hegemonic superpowers of the world - i.e., the USA, Great Britain, China, etc. As a result, the richer countries get richer while the poorer countries get poorer. Because the trade is without restrictoin, companies that are using workers in foreign countries (e.g., US tech support call centers in India), don't have to pay the workers necessarily a living wage for their services - those are not controlled within the trade agreements, and it's much cheaper for the country to outsource, and use workers in developing countries, because, like I said, they have no negotiating power.

However, there is something that can be done.

The fair trade movement proposes that trade be not only free, but that trade agreements between companies in first and third world countries be also far - creating not only economic growth, but helping to alleviate poverty in the developing world by ensuring safe working conditions, a fair living wage for the workers, and fair compensation for their work. In other words, while free trade takes a step toward making it easier for third world countries to produce products for the developed nations, it has been used to prop up the developed countries even more over the heads of the developing nations. In other words, free trade simply emphasizes the rich-poor gap between countries, while fair trade attempts to close it.

So what can we, the few little Americans that we are, do?

For one, we can support the fair trade movement by buying fairly traded products such as coffee, tea, and sugar. These are staples in the diet of the average American/English-person, and would therefore increase the power of fair trade if more people started buying. Some good places to buy these products include OxFam, The Emancipation Network, Equal Exchange, and Ten Thousand Villages. If you are buying in store, looking for products with a "fair trade certified" seal on them (pictured above).

Further steps include lobbying Congress (the Invisible Children campaign shows that this actually does make a difference) and writing letters to US Trade Ambassadors.

Join me on the fight to make trade fair and to help pull our brothers and sisters out of the pit we have dug for them.