Interesting experiment by the UN

The UN is trying something new in Liberia. The conflict-torn country is being patrolled by the first ever all-female peace-keeping force. Liberia, as you may recall, is one of the countries in which UN forces had been accused of sexually exploiting the inhabitants they were supposed to be protecting. Hardly reassuring if you are a woman in a country where rape is already the most prevalent of crimes.

The UN's response was innovative and effective. The Indian contingent arrived in 2007, and it is probably no coincidence that female enrollment in the Liberian police force has climbed since then. That can only be good news for the women and children of Liberia, who obviously have not been able to count on effective protection in the past. And it is always encouraging to see something that actually seems to be working.

Note: I'm closing this post to commenting because of excessive enthusiasm on the part of spammers. Email me if you have something vital to say. ;o)

An unwelcome ingredient in your Easter chocolate

Slavery.

Child slavery.

Sometimes the children are slaves to circumstance - the children of poverty-stricken farmers who have no choice but to send the whole family into the fields. The lack of education for the children ensures that the vicious cycle will continue.

But sometimes they are literally slaves.

Children who are involved in the worst labor abuses come from countries such as Mali, Burkina Faso, and Togo -- nations that are even more destitute than the impoverished Ivory Coast. Parents in these countries sell their children to traffickers believing that they will find honest work once they arrive in Ivory Coast and then send their earnings home. But as soon as they are separated from their families, the young boys are made to work for little or nothing. The children work long and hard -- they head into the fields at 6:00 in the morning and often do not finish until 6:30 at night.

" Though he had worked countless days harvesting cocoa pods -- 400 of which are needed to make a pound of chocolate -- Diabate has never tasted the finished product. "I don't know what chocolate is," he told the press.

The largest chocolate producers are aware of the problems but wash their hands of responsibility.

For years, US chocolate manufacturers have said they are not responsible for the conditions on cocoa plantations since they don't own them. But the $13 billion chocolate industry is heavily consolidated, with just two firms -- Hershey's and M&M/Mars -- controlling two-thirds of the US chocolate candy market. Surely, these global corporations have the power and the ability to reform problems in the supply chain. What they lack is the will.

After a string of media exposes and the threat of government action jeopardized their image, the chocolate industry finally agreed to take action in 2001. On November 30, 2001 the US chocolate industry released a Protocol and Joint Statement outlining their plans to work toward eliminating the worst forms of child labor (see ILO Convention 182) and forced labor (see ILO Convention 29) in cocoa production.

Unfortunately, the plan does not guarantee stable and sufficient prices for cocoa, or any guarantee that cocoa farmers will receive a fair income in the end. Without such a guarantee, there is now way to ensure that abusive child labor on cocoa farms will cease for good.

Fortunately there is something you can do about it. Insist on Fairtrade chocolate. Yes, you will pay more for your chocolate, but is getting a lower price on an unnecessary indulgence so important that we are willing to force children into slavery? Are you willing?

I'm not.

The Australian media reports on the abuse: click here.
The cocoa industry fails to deliver on its commitments: click here.

The Biblical take:

Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. ... Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.

James 5:1,4

Kommentare auf Deutsch sind immer willkommen.


Technorati tags: Cocoa, Slavery

Peaceful, orderly election in Africa

Seeing as I'm on a bit of a good news roll right now, let's highlight today's election in Ghana. The fifth, peaceful orderly election in a row in that country. Turnout is expected to exceed the 85% achieved last time. (Yes, you read right. 85%)

Although my heart has frequently ached for Zimbabwe and Somalia, and some of the lesser known basket cases of Africa, Ghana shows us that Africans are quite capable of doing democracy right. And while we're at it, when is the last time you heard news about Gambia, Senegal, or Botswana? That's because they too, know how to do it right. And doing it right is so boring. Proof that boring can be very, very good.


Technorati tags: Ghana

Sorry I've been AWOL. That old chronic fatigue thing decided to raise its ugly head and I've needed all my meager energy just to make sure the bills get paid and that there's food in the house. Anything else is extra.

Along with the writing I haven't been doing, and discovering that my crit group found my opening chapter very confusing (nothing like a good crit group to prevent you from making a fool of yourself), I have also been keeping a bit of an eye on the world, which hasn't helped much in lifting my spirits.

Zimbabwe continues to suffer in its Mugabe-created hell. When I think of the hope that they must have felt when he first came to power, my heart aches for them.

I continue to try to ignore what's going on in Russia, as the country cheerfully and willingly marches back to a totalitarian, belligerent dictatorship. It makes you wish Fukuyama had been right, although I never believed for a single second that he was. Equilibrium is something that humanity never lives in, just a point we pass through on our pendulum swings.

How long before somebody decides enough is enough and takes over Somalia?

On a lighter note, expose Americans to Canadian football long enough, and they will never go back...

But Haddox, and about a half-dozen of her Baltimore buddies, couldn't let go of their passion for high-scoring, wide-open Canadian football and have continued to get their fix by making Grey Cups trips an annual ritual.

What's on your mind lately?

Zimbabwe opposition offices raided

So reads the headline on the Yahoo news report. It then continues:

President Robert Mugabe's government raided the offices of the main opposition movement and rounded up foreign journalists Thursday in an ominous indication that he may use intimidation and violence to keep his grip on power.

Hands up, everyone who is surprised. It may be an ominous indication, but I personally am surprised that Mugabe has shown this much restraint. It's totally out of character. Power will slip out of his hands when they are cold and dead, and not a minute earlier. His use of intimidation and violence is well-documented and goes way back.

It's rather uncomfortable for journalists to document that though. Mugabe was a former media darling. It is difficult to admit mistakes, especially ones that never should have been made. To this day journalists seem incapable of summoning the moral outrage they applied (rightly, in that case) to apartheid and turning it against Mugabe. This despite the fact that he has turned his formerly prosperous country into a hellhole that most of his people would cheerfully leave for South Africa - present or past - or for old-time Rhodesia.

It is the African tragedy writ large all over again: a "liberator" who is really only interested in his own power. And a politically correct world that should be howling in outrage but doesn't. And journalists who express polite amazement at the inevitable.

I think I shall go be ill.


Technorati tags: Mugabe, Journalism, Zimbabwe