Sunday Mail Column - walk against child slavery

Christopher and world vision are planning a walk against child slavery.

Whether you consider yourself a Republican or a Democrat it is impossible not to be swept up in the tide of history that last week saw Barack Obama, a man of African American descent elected the President of the United States of America.

It was only 45 years ago that Martin Luther King’s sweeping rhetoric captured the attention of the world, the famous ‘I have a dream’ speech electrifying the civil rights movement leading to significant reforms and the end of segregation.

100 years before this great speech was made in Washington, a person of African descent in the United States would be legally a slave. A Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, issued the emancipation proclamation in the 1860’s putting an end to slavery and beginning the United States down a road that has lead to the Obama Presidency.

The concept of slavery today seems remote and absurd. The idea of child slavery is heinous and horrifying.

But the fact is that slavery does still exist in the world.

Right now there are many thousands of children who are forced to harvest cocoa beans in the Ivory Coast and in Ghana. These children are slaves who, according to reports, work between eighty and a hundred hours a week in the extremely labour intensive harvesting of cocoa beans.

These children are stolen from their villages, bought and sold by criminals, traded across borders, smuggled into countries and abused as sex slaves, child soldiers, and on many of the cocoa farms in the region.

I look at my own children and find this practise completely abhorrent and terrifying.

Since learning more about World Vision’s “Don’t Trade Lives” campaign to raise awareness about slavery I have used my position to promote their cause.

This is a difficult issue to address. The extreme poverty of the regions means that simply boycotting non-Fair Trade products completely would have dire consequences for farmers. Confectionary Manufacturers have been making progress in eliminating the use of child slaves in production and ensuring that cocoa farmers receive a fair price for their product, but there is always more to be done. Any captive child forced to work as a slave is a tragedy.

One action I have taken has been to write to the Prime Minister and State Premiers urging them to use that buying power to only stock chocolate that is certified as having not been made by slaves in the tens of thousands of vending machines, snack bars and cafes across the gamut of government buildings and enterprises.

Placing this chocolate in vending machines within government offices may only seem like a small thing, but it would raise awareness about the campaign, and it would send a message to manufacturers who purchase cocoa beans that they must continue to work to reduce the use of child slavery in production. It is also a practical policy direction that governments could achieve tomorrow if they wanted to, simply by announcing that from now on every new contract signed with suppliers as old contracts expired would have these condition.

At the suggestion of Reverend Tim Costello I have also organised a “Walk Against Child Slavery”, a fair-like event that will be held next Saturday 22 November at the corner of West and South Terrace in Kensington Gardens, between 10am and 1pm.

Tim Costello, Jane Doyle and I will be leading the Walk around the various stations at 11am, but feel free to drop by anytime and learn more about this issue. There will also be face painting, entertainment, as well as local fair trade and interested businesses who’re participating with stalls.

The Walk is supported by many charity organisations who will be operating interactive stations around the park that those attending are invited to walk between and in the process learn more about modern day Child Slavery and what we can do to combat it.

This is not a political event, and I have written to all my South Australian parliamentary colleagues of all political persuasions who have an interest in this area extending them an invitation to attend and lend their support to this important cause. In addition to WorldVision, the Walk is supported by Caritas, Oxfam, the Oaktree Foundation, Baptist World Aid Australia through their ‘Catalyst’ campaign, the Fair Trade Association of Australia and New Zealand and Stop the Traffik.

In Australia, for the first time in many years, our primary concern as a nation is fear about the direction of our economy. Unemployment is expected to rise, and business confidence has plummeted. People are using the word crisis to describe it.

As we batten down the hatches in preparation for the global financial storm that is beginning to sweep our country it is human nature to focus on our own needs, and those of our families rather than the needs of our brothers and sisters overseas.

This is rational and fair, but in our appropriate concern for our family’s wellbeing we must not forget about those children who aren’t allowed to finish school, are ripped away from their families, and have their lives utterly destroyed.

It will be great if we can get a large turn-out next Saturday at the Walk Against Child Slavery, and I hope many Sunday Mail readers can be there. But if you can’t be there, remember to look for an option that is free of slave labour when you’re making your own purchasing decisions – check out www.donttradelives.com.au.