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

It's not just the throwaway children they're pimping

As a follow-up to my previous post on teenage prostitution, this report from Britain illustrates too well that it's not only throwaway children they're preying on. A suspicious teacher investigates a fifteen-year-old's bag and finds the accoutrements of prostitution. She definitely wasn't homeless, but that's about all we know.

This girl probably was reeled in with the promise of easy money, rather than out of desperation.

The pimping suspects were released "facing no further action". *Sigh* I hope that was only because of lack of evidence. Because it's actually pretty depressing.

Is a society where the stigmatism of prostitution is eroding, where middle-class young women (and much younger) dress like hookers putting our daughters in greater danger?


Technorati tags: Prostitution

Because, ya know, pimping children isn't BAD enough

The FBI did a nation-wide sweep to rescue teenage prostitutes. Forty-eight children were rescued. But why bring in the Feds?

Historically, federal authorities rarely play a role in anti-prostitution crackdowns, but the FBI is becoming more involved as it tries to rescue children caught up in the business.

"The goal is to recover kids. We consider them the child victims of prostitution," said FBI deputy assistant director Daniel Roberts.

"Unfortunately, the vast majority of these kids are what they term 'throwaway kids,' with no family support, no friends. They're kids that nobody wants, they're loners. Many are runaways," Roberts said.
...

The federal effort is also designed to hit pimps with much tougher prison sentences than they would likely get in state criminal courts.

Government prosecutors look to bring racketeering charges or conspiracy charges that can result in decades of jail time.

"Some of these networks of pimps and their organizations are very sophisticated, they're interstate," said Roberts.

Come again?

The federal effort is also designed to hit pimps with much tougher prison sentences than they would likely get in state criminal courts.

Government prosecutors look to bring racketeering charges or conspiracy charges that can result in decades of jail time.

Because pimping children isn't bad enough.

I remember the outrage one of my sons felt a few years ago reading the paper one day. Somebody guilty of sexually abusing a child got a sentence of ten years. Just like the guy who stole a beer truck.

What is wrong with us?

(I am in no way slamming the FBI's operation. I know their hearts bleed for these kids. It's the courts and the legislators that are messed up here.)

Organizations who are helping:
GEMS
The Dream Center
I'll add more if you tell me where to find them.


Technorati tags: Child prostitution

Sanity in the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that Waddah (Martin) Mustapha is not entitled to damages for psychological damages as a result of seeing a fly in his unopened bottle of drinking water.

I have long been amazed at what trivialities courts consider worthy of hefty damages, although amazed is perhaps too nice a word.

In a 9-0 ruling issued Thursday, the Supreme Court decided that his reaction was exaggerated and that a "person of normal fortitude, a more reasonable person, would have had a more reasonable reaction," the CBC's Rosemary Barton reported from Ottawa.

"[The court ruled] it would have been impossible for Culligan Canada, the supplier of the water bottle, to foresee this sort of extreme reaction that Waddah Mustapha had," Barton said.

The court decided the psychological damages suffered by Mustapha were "too remote" to justify more than $300,000 in compensation Mustapha was seeking, and ordered him to pay the company's court costs.

In this precedent-setting ruling, the Supreme Court has effectively and unanimously declared that psychological damage has to be foreseeable before someone can be held accountable for inflicting it.

A few more rulings like this and perhaps our legal system will actually speed up as the backlog of trivial cases is cleared out and genuinely important cases have a little breathing room.

Technorati tags: Supreme Court, Psychological damage

The General has a point

General Roméo Dallaire (that's Senator Dallaire to you civvies) is upbraiding the Conservative government over the case of Omar Khadr. (In all fairness, the Liberals didn't do any better when they were in power, which may be why Stéphane Dion is threatening to discipline the senator, in yet another stunning example of Dion's lack of political and good sense.)

Dallaire's central point - and whatever you think of the General or Khadr or any of the political parties, it's a very good one - is that Khadr was only 15 at the time he was taken into custody and sent to Guantanamo. Someone that young is normally considered a victim of indoctrination and/or intimidation and is rehabilitated, not charged. He asks what makes this case different. And he's right. You cannot have two sets of standards, applied according to the political winds of the times. Either we stand for human rights and justice equally applied, or we don't.

Dallaire said Canadian soldiers have helped rehabilitate more than 7,000 child soldiers in Afghanistan. None of them have been prosecuted, he said.

"What is the political reason? What makes [Khadr] different from the others?" said Dallaire.

Technorati tags: Romeo Dallaire, Omar Khadr

Canadian teen obtains justice in Pennsylvania

The Amazing Wonderdog delivers the denouement of the Travis Biehn story, which was big news last year, but is now being neglected in the media.

Travis Biehn, the Newfoundland-born teenager who was convicted in Pennsylvania last year of making a bomb threat against his school and possessing explosives, has won his appeal. Biehn's conviction was overturned last month, and the DA has not filed a counter-appeal.

...

Fear is what this whole sorry story is about. Biehn was charged, in the absence of evidence, because of fear. He was convicted, based on innuendo, in a climate of fear. His conviction became news touted by a media that acts to magnify that fear, and commented on by bloggers who were, by and large, too busy pissing themselves to use their brains.

Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and Biehn has been cleared. Diane Gibbons, the District Attorney who was attempting re-election at the time, had tried to make Biehn's nationality an issue, although the judge (also named Biehn, but unrelated), who clearly didn't like Travis, had said that anti-Americanism was not a factor.

Technorati tags: Travis Biehn

Travesty of justice in Libya

Reader_iam at Done With Mirrors is making an impassioned plea for anyone with a conscience to do something concrete to help the medical workers facing execution in Libya. One Palestinian doctor and five Bulgarian nurses are charged with deliberately infecting children in their care with AIDS. The medical evidence which exonerated them was thrown out of court, presumably because it made the Libyan hospital system look bad. Their lawyers, from Lawyers Without Borders, believe that only international pressure can help them now.

Write, blog, call--whatever. Do something. And if you're a scientist in a relevent field, do whatever you can do, or if you know someone who is a scientist in a relevent field, ask him or her to speak out, in whatever fashion, and/or contact appropriate professional organizations or affiliations.

Being neither a lawyer nor a scientist, I certainly can't contribute any expertise, but I do plan on writing Peter Mackay, minister of Foreign Affairs, Stephen Harper, prime minister, and John Baird, my local MP. Not much, but every little bit helps.

Technorati tags: Lawyers Without Borders

Truly frightening

I am depressed. And this is why.

The McCain-Graham-Warner proposal concerning military commissions was, from the beginning, an awful bill that was quite radical in its own right. As but one example, the senators' proposal strips all detainees in American custody of the right of habeas corpus, meaning that detainees are denied the right to challenge in court either the validity of their detention (e.g., by proving that they are not terrorists) or the legality of their treatment (e.g., by demonstrating that they have been tortured).

This denial-of-judicial-access provision means, as Yale law professor Jack Balkin explained, that the military can imprison, and torture, a detainee forever without ever bringing the detainee before a military commission, and the detainee has no means at all to challenge his detention or the treatment to which he is subjected. It is difficult to imagine a more radical power to vest in our government than the power to detain people (including legal residents in the U.S.) forever, and to torture them, while expressly denying a detainee all legal recourse. Yet that is exactly what the McCain-Graham-Warner proposal (and the White House's proposal) provides.

I would desperately love to hear that this is a serious distortion of the facts, that fundamental principles of justice have not been violated, and that the United States has not just taken the first great step towards becoming a police state.

Being something of a neophyte in American politics, I don't know if Glenn Greenwald is considered a loony lefty. I'm not sure it matters; I've never been overly impressed with ad hominem arguments and the mistaken impression that affixing a label trumps an argument. What I want to know from supporters of this bill is this: is this depiction accurate? Is it truly possible for an innocent to be trapped with no recourse? And if so, how can you support it? If not, please demonstrate. I would love to know that this is not actually reality. Because this kind of reality is truly frightening.

[Update] The Washington Post is also not impressed.

The bad news is that Mr. Bush, as he made clear yesterday, intends to continue using the CIA to secretly detain and abuse certain terrorist suspects. He will do so by issuing his own interpretation of the Geneva Conventions in an executive order and by relying on questionable Justice Department opinions that authorize such practices as exposing prisoners to hypothermia and prolonged sleep deprivation. Under the compromise agreed to yesterday, Congress would recognize his authority to take these steps and prevent prisoners from appealing them to U.S. courts. The bill would also immunize CIA personnel from prosecution for all but the most serious abuses and protect those who in the past violated U.S. law against war crimes.

[[Update]] Do read the comment thread. There's a good, constructive discussion going on.

Technorati tags: Detainee Bill

Christian Arguments Against Torture

That bastion of left-wing ideology, the magazine Christianity Today (founded by Billy Graham), came out in February in no uncertain terms against the legitimizing of torture in the war against terrorism. The article "5 Reasons Torture is Always Wrong" is available online, as well as a longer version on the website of the author, David Gushee.

In the article, Gushee lays out the moral problem, and the question of the definition of torture. He dismisses the idea that 9/11 justifies a modification of the long-standing American opposition to torture and outlines his five reasons, which I shall recap briefly here.

1. Torture violates the dignity of the human being.

2. Torture mistreats the vulnerable and violates the demands of justice.

3. Authorizing torture trusts government too much.

4. Torture dehumanizes the torturer.

5. Torture erodes the character of the nation that tortures.

And his conclusion:

We are tempted to follow the logic of a July 11, 2005, Time magazine cover story that said, "In the war on terrorism, the personal dignity of a fanatic trained for mass murder may be an inevitable casualty."

Yet we are queasy enough about this "inevitable casualty" that we do not want to call torture what it is. We do not want to expose our policies, our prisons, or our prisoners to public view. We deny that we are torturing, or we deny that our prisoners are really prisoners. When pushed against the wall, we remind one another how evil the enemy is. We give every evidence of the kind of self-deception that is characteristic of a descent into sin.

It is past time for evangelical Christians to remind our government and our society of perennial moral values, which also happen to be international and domestic laws. As Christians, we care about moral values, and we vote on the basis of such values. We care deeply about human-rights violations around the world. Now it is time to raise our voice and say an unequivocal no to torture, a practice that has no place in our society and violates our most cherished moral convictions.

I would urge any religious person (or non-religious person, for that matter) who thinks there is a justification for torture to read this article carefully. It is vitally important that we as Christians do not fall prey to moral seduction and betray Biblical standards.

Further Christian arguments against torture can be found in the post Truth About Torture on Ochuk's Blog, in which he summarizes and links to a Christian symposium on ethics that addressed the issue of torture.

Technorati tags: David Gushee

Arar has no rights in the US

It would appear that the American judicial system reserves the right to commit injustice against non-citizens. From Jurist Legal News and Research:

In 2004 Arar filed a lawsuit in US federal court challenging US extraordinary rendition practices under the Torture Victim Protection Act. Arar's lawyers argued the Act provides the US court with jurisdiction over cases involving civil rights abuses committed abroad, including Arar's case, but US District Judge David G. Trager dismissed the case in February of this year, citing "the national security and foreign policy considerations at stake" and holding that Arar, as a non-citizen, could not raise a constitutional right to due process. Arar is appealing that decision. (Emphasis mine)

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding Trager, but it sure seems to me like he's saying the US government has carte blanche to commit civil rights abuses against non-citizens. Can selective application of justice be understood to be justice at all?

In the meanwhile, O'Connor is urging the Canadian government to "register 'a formal objection' with both the United States and Syria concerning their treatment of Arar."

Technorati tags: Maher Arar, Extraordinary rendition

Maher Arar vindicated by inquiry

Justice Dennis O'Connor has concluded that Arar was an innocent victim and was not involved in al-Qaeda activities in any way, as U.S. officials had alleged.

O'Connor criticizes the RCMP for supplying misleading, inaccurate information to their American counterparts, for releasing information without reviewing it first, and for trying to whitewash their role in the affair.

The government too comes in for censure:

But O'Connor said reports were prepared by government officials after Arar's release that had the "effect of downplaying the mistreatment or torture to which Mr. Arar had been subjected."

He also slammed Canadian officials for leaking "confidential and sometimes inaccurate information about the case to the media for the purpose of damaging Mr. Arar's reputation or protecting their self-interests or government's interests."

In my mind, the most important thing now is for the government to put measures in place to ensure that this never happens again. The Anti-terrorist Act in particular needs a major overhaul.

Technorati tags: Maher Arar, Dennis O'Connor, RCMP

Gleanings from the blogosphere, Sept. 18

Glenn Greenwald attacks Presidential Infallibility Syndrome at Unclaimed Territory.

This principle is just axiomatic -- the fact that someone is accused by the Bush administration of being a terrorist or suspected by the administration of working with terrorists does not, in fact, mean that they are a "terrorist." There is a distinction between (a) being accused or suspected by the Bush administration of working with Al Qaeda and (b) actually being in cahoots with Al Qaeda and being a "terrorist."

Presumption of innocence and the right to a fair and open trial are values that can not be compromised. They underpin our entire society and must be protected.

RCMP nervous about O'Connor report

Justice O'Connor's report on the Maher Arar affair is due out on Monday. The Toronto Star reports that the RCMP is bracing for criticism of the way they passed information on to American authorities without proper analysis, but that they are likely to plead inexperience.

With this context, some observers are wondering if the government will respond to O'Connor's report by saying that the RCMP may have been inexperienced in the early days post-9/11 and mistakes were made, but improvements have already been implemented.

That was the reaction back in 2004 with the release of an internal RCMP report that found the force ill-equipped to deal with terrorism investigations.

"Post-9/11 was a different time (from) where we are now. Everything has changed," RCMP spokesperson Insp. Tim Cogan told the Star at the time. "We're in a different world today than we were then. ... A lot of progress has been made after this historically unprecedented event."

Well, at least they aren't trying to justify it.

Technorati tags: Maher Arar, Dennis O'Connor

Human rights in Canada

Dennis O'Connor's report into the Maher Arar affair should be released on Monday, and two other men who, like Arar, suffered torture in Syrian prisons are hoping for vindication also.

Warren Allmand, a Liberal cabinet minister in the 1970s and 80s who now heads the Montreal-based International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, said the key question in all the cases is whether Canada knowingly participated in the "out-sourced torture" of its citizens.

"It is not merely a question of whether there was negligence (but) whether these shameful incidents were carried out deliberately," said Allmand.

"What does all this say about the rule of law in Canada? Can officials and intelligence officers suspend the law and the Constitution to suit their own purposes?"

We must not fall into the trap of considering this to be a political issue pitting the left against the right. The Anti-terrorist Act was passed by a Liberal government and has not been seriously challenged by the Conservatives; "extraordinary rendition" first saw the light of day under Bill Clinton and has been extensively used under Bush's administration. There is blame and shame enough for everybody.

The issues here transcend political affilitation and empty-headed posturing. They are vital to conserving our liberal democracies and people from both ends of the political spectrum and points in between should be united in calling for an end to this kind of blatant injustice.

Please, contact your MP, Prime Minister, Senator, Congressman, President or anyone else with a voice in this matter and express your concern.

Technorati tags: Maher Arar, Dennis O'Connor

Padded cell vs. open road

Open letter to MP John Baird and Prime Minister Stephen Harper


Dear Sirs,

The Anti-terrorism Act is coming up for review. This law was passed hastily in the aftermath of 9/11 and contains some of the most alarming provisions ever enacted in a Canadian Parliament.

I have been impressed by the level-headedness and willingness to act according to principle that your government has demonstrated. Could you please use both in retooling this act?

Security certificates and the extremely broad wording limiting freedom of the press are especially troubling, as they dangerously undermine the foundational values of a free society. Allowing this legislation to be reintroduced in its present form would leave a legacy of open doors for legally sanctioned despotism. While you may have no intention of abusing the possibilities of this highly regressive act (although one could argue that any use at all is abuse), you cannot guarantee the actions of your successors.

I am confident that there are ways to protect our society from terrorism without sacrificing our most fundamental principles: freedom of speech, presumption of innocence and open trials.

I for one, am willing to accept some measure of risk in protecting these principles. Padded cells may be safe and even comfortable, but I prefer the risk of the open road.

On a related note, I believe it is high time that charges against Juliet O'Neill were dropped. This was a shameful move by the previous government and it dishonours you to allow it to continue.

Respectfully,

Technorati tags: Juliet O'Neill, Anti-Terrorism Act

Subcontracting torture

Maher Arar has moved to B.C. And I for one wish him well. I didn't know the man, although I did run into him on the street a couple of times when we lived in the same neighbourhood. But the mere thought of what he has had to go through makes my blood boil.

I don't care how spooked we or the Americans were by 9/11, there is NEVER any excuse whatsoever for sending ANYBODY to be tortured in foreign jails. Which is what happened to Maher Arar, on the flimsiest of evidence, with no court hearings, no appeal.

This is such a fundamental breach of justice it just about makes me ill. I don't believe for a minute that he was guilty. Guilty people do not clamour loudly for extensive public investigations, as Arar has. But even if he had been a fire-breathing jihadist, we profoundly violate our own values as a society if we take our own criminals and hand them over to other criminals who happen to be in charge in another society.

First, it violates the principle of presumption of innocence. Quite frankly, if we sacrifice that, we might just as well join the Taliban, because we have lost one of the main things that allows us to claim any moral superiority over them.

Secondly, it violates the principle of an accused person to face those accusations in an open trial. Again, this is such a fundamental principle of our society that it can not and must not be sacrificed.

Thirdly, we are big boys and girls. If we have terrorists to deal with, we are capable of handling them. We don't need Syrian torture chambers. This was not only a violation of fundamental justice, but an abdication of responsibility.

Fourthly, torture is just plain wrong. You may call this a subjective moral judgment, but I'm not budging. It's too big a topic to handle in this context, so I may tackle it another time.

Fifthly, even if you can stomach the idea of torture, in practice, it is horribly inefficient. Confessions and information obtained under torture are always highly suspect.

Sixthly, it was a violation of Canadian sovereignty. What business do American officials have deciding to deport a Canadian citizen, dual citizenship or not? He hadn't violated any American laws on American territory. Public inquiries or no, I don't think we've ever really found out how much Canadian complicity there was in this affair (correct me if I'm wrong). From the little I know about it, there was some cooperation between the police forces and possibly secret services of the two countries, which might make this a moot point.

Great as the wrong committed against Arar was, we violated ourselves just as much in this whole sorry affair. No one has ever been held responsible, no heads have rolled, and as far as I know, no measures have been implemented to ensure it doesn't happen again. We desperately need to address these issues or risk becoming a society unworthy of defence.

Technorati tags: Maher Arar