Avoiding slave labour this Christmas

You already know that fair trade chocolate and coffee are better than the regular kind. Or that there are sweatshops in China, Pakistan, India and elsewhere churning out mountains of cheap garments and shoes. But how much do you really know about slave labour in the modern world? Yes, it really does happen. People are cheaper to buy than they've ever been in history, in relative terms. Dr. Kevin Bales, President of Free the Slaves and a US university professor on Sociology, says:

It surprises people that there’s actually a very large number of slaves in the world today—our best estimate is 27 million. And that is defining a slave in a very narrow way; we’re not talking about sweatshop workers or people who are just poor, we’re talking about people who are controlled by violence, who cannot walk away, who are being held against their will, who are being paid nothing.

You can avoid supporting the slave trade this Christmas by choosing fair trade clothing, toys, and chocolate to give as gifts. This is also the reason why I don't add new products to my shop very often: it takes a lot of back-and-forth with suppliers before I can be sure that products really are made under fair working conditions, with workers receing a fair wage that is enough to live on in their country. I don't just want to avoid slavery, I also want to avoid sweatshop labour (where workers are paid, but not enough to live on). If you want to know more about real slavery, check out this 10 minute video - Dr. Kevin Bales talking to the Momentum Conference in San Francisco.