There has been a long campaign for chocolate companies to only source their cocoa from farms that don’t use trafficked child labour, and who pay the workers a fair wage. And progress has been slow. I have previously reported how I have joined many others in writing to chocolate companies here in Australia asking them […]
Almost one billion people, an eighth of the world’s population, are hungry as you read this. Why?
I have previously reported on the ethical dilemmas posed by eating chocolate, due to the trafficking and exploitation of children in growing cocoa in West Africa (see My pleasure, their misery? and Easter eggs and slavery), and on the responses to my letters to chocolate manufacturers (see Fair Trade chocolate – report 1). I have […]
Easter’s coming soon, and if you live in the west as I do, you’ll probably be eating your share of easter eggs. But what if the eggs came from cocoa grown using child labour, that is effectively slave labour?
I met Jon Owen at the Black Stump music festival. Over three days I listened to his stories and was impressed. I laughed a lot, but had the odd tear as well. Jon and his wife Lisa live in one of Sydney’s most depressed suburbs as part of a community supported by Urban Neighbours of […]
Back in November I reported on exploitation in the world cocoa trade in My pleasure, their misery?. At that time I wrote about this to two prominent chocolate manufacturers. I subsequently reported (Fair Trade chocolate – report 2) that I had received a reply from Cadbury indicating their ongoing support for Fair Trade products. I […]
A couple of weeks ago, I outlined some facts about exploitation in the growing of cocoa for chocolate (see My pleasure, their misery?) and at the same time wrote to two prominent chocolate manufacturers expressing my concerns and asking them to make more concerted moves to only source cocoa from growers who were paid a […]
It was a beautiful sunny day in Sydney today. I went for a drive in the country and visited the Berry markets. (For those unfamiliar, these aren’t fruit markets. Berry is a former dairy farming town 2 hours south of Sydney, which has reinvented itself as an art and craft town. Once a month, they […]
Last post I raised concerns about world poverty in the light of the world’s population reaching 7 billion people. But how big is the need, and how much would it take to bring some relief for those who most desperately need it?
Those of us who are christians in the western world are currently facing one of the biggest ethical challenges we have ever faced. Consider the following population graph – the world’s 7 billionth person is about to be born.