PRESS RELEASE - Trade Aid - Wednesday 18 July 2007 – for immediate release
Slave Trade Still Exists
The Abolitionist William Wilberforce appears in cinemas across the country this week in the epic drama Amazing Grace
which celebrates the Abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade through the British Parliament. Now 200 years on, after
watching Amazing Grace, we find ourselves asking what has really changed.
The shackles and chains have disappeared, the slave auctions are no longer public but people trafficking is now a close
second in illegal revenue earnings after the drugs and weapons trade. In 2007 there are now more slaves than at any time
in history with recent estimates putting that figure at 27 million[1].
As New Zealanders and consumers of globally produced products, we are involved. The prevalence of slavery in industries
such as cocoa, textiles, brick making, fireworks, carpets, fishing, farming, footballs, rubber and many more, means that
slavery plays a part in some of the products we use and consume every day. The individual products can be hard to
identify but it is becoming more common to be able to point the finger and expect change to happen both within
industries and within companies.
So what about New Zealand – what could you do if you knew there was slavery in your chocolate, in your coffee or in your
sportswear? Currently nothing, but New Zealand fair trade organisation Trade Aid is working to change this. July and
August not only brings Amazing Grace to a cinema near you, it also brings The Petition which asks for an anti slavery
law based on the premise that it should be illegal to import a product into New Zealand that is made using slave labour.
As New Zealanders we have a proud history of achieving firsts in social justice but when it comes to slavery we are
dragging the chain. Currently in the United States a court case is being tried against chocolate manufacturer Nestle and
the cocoa suppliers of the brands M/Mars and Hershey’s for alleged trafficking, torture and beatings of Malian children on cocoa plantations in the Ivory
Coast. This court case is only possible because of a 1983 law that bans the importation of products to the U.S. known to
use slave labour in their supply chains. New Zealand also needs to tell the world that we are not happy to be the
receivers of slave products.
Modern-day slavery comes in many forms and includes bonded labour, trafficking, child slaves, forced labour, forced
marriage and even small pockets of what is now known as traditional slavery. These men, women and children are mainly
involved in providing products and services for the consumption of developed countries. Researchers are beginning to
reveal that whole country economies are developing based on the use of slaves. The recent rescue of 31 workers who were
forced slaves in a brick factory in the Shanxi province in China, the widespread use of child slaves and bonded labour
in the cocoa plantations in Western Africa and the admission of tyre companies that employees in their rubber
plantations must bring their families to work in order to make their quota and get paid, highlight a growing
international trade system based on the exploitation of men, women and children who are not free. The biggest difference
is that now the shackles and chains have been released, modern day slavery slips under the radar.
Amazing Grace opens in New Zealand cinemas from July 19 and viewers and other concerned individuals have until The UN
day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition on August 23 to take action and sign The Petition. Trade
Aid is aiming for 144,000 signatures, a symbolic number representative of the 3.6% of the countries population that
William Wilberforce got to sign his petition when he and other abolitionists thought they had achieved the abolition of
the Transatlantic Slave Trade in 1807.
[1] Sourced by the UN, New York Times, Amnesty International, The Christian Science Monitor, and Free The Slaves, among
others. The statistics on slavery are complex and difficult to measure - this is not an exhaustive account of existing
slavery
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SLAVERY STILL EXISTS - sign the petition to stop slave made products entering NZ - www.tradeaid.org.nz
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