reality check
Behind the cut is uncomfortable info about chocolate and cut flowers and slave/child labor from organic consumers association. There are friendly chocolate growers who don't use child labor, and flower growers who don't expose young workers to neurotoxins so don't despair.
*ALERT OF THE WEEK:
**PLEASE TAKE A STAND FOR LOVE & JUSTICE ON VALENTINES DAY
*/FACT:/ One-third of Nestle's chocolate is from West Africa, where
over 286,000 children are working in slave-like conditions on cocoa
(chocolate) farms.
/FACT: /Dole is the largest distributor of cut-flowers in the world,
the majority of which are imported from Columbia and Ecuador, where
farmers and flower workers (often adolescent girls) are exposed to
127 different chemicals, including neurotoxins and carcinogens.
/FACT:/ The three private owners of M&M/Mars Inc. are each "worth"
$10.4 billion, while the West African farmers growing the cocoa for
M&Ms chocolate are paid an average of $108 annually.
/FACT:/ Despite record profits in 2006, Hershey's has been accused
of buying from contractors who utilize child labor and child slavery
on cocoa farms on the Ivory Coast.
TAKE ACTION: Send a message to the chocolate and flower giants to
stop child labor, illegal toxic chemical use, union busting, and to
pay their farmers a living wage.
_http://www.organicconsumers.org/valentines/alert.htm
*ALERT OF THE WEEK:
**PLEASE TAKE A STAND FOR LOVE & JUSTICE ON VALENTINES DAY
*/FACT:/ One-third of Nestle's chocolate is from West Africa, where
over 286,000 children are working in slave-like conditions on cocoa
(chocolate) farms.
/FACT: /Dole is the largest distributor of cut-flowers in the world,
the majority of which are imported from Columbia and Ecuador, where
farmers and flower workers (often adolescent girls) are exposed to
127 different chemicals, including neurotoxins and carcinogens.
/FACT:/ The three private owners of M&M/Mars Inc. are each "worth"
$10.4 billion, while the West African farmers growing the cocoa for
M&Ms chocolate are paid an average of $108 annually.
/FACT:/ Despite record profits in 2006, Hershey's has been accused
of buying from contractors who utilize child labor and child slavery
on cocoa farms on the Ivory Coast.
TAKE ACTION: Send a message to the chocolate and flower giants to
stop child labor, illegal toxic chemical use, union busting, and to
pay their farmers a living wage.
_http://www.organicconsumers.org/valentines/alert.htm