Fair Trade is to end exploitation and abuse of women and
children
(republishing, copying, no restrictions)
By: Father Shay Cullen
Fair Trade is about human development, social justice and helping the poor prosper in their villages. It keeps their children in school and reduces migration from the countryside to the cities and abroad. Global injustice is what drives the poor to seek jobs among the rich.
World shops or Fair Trade shops educate the public about the meaning of fair trade and build awareness of global problems and inspires people to work for justice with and for the people of developing nations. Fair trade establishes partnerships not dependence and Fair traders work to give economic freedom to the poor.
Fair Trade is a movement dedicated to bringing social justice to the poor of the developing world and good working conditions for everyone. The fair traders are people that actively campaign to change the global injustice and lessen the power of multinational corporations.
Philippine Preda dried mangos and pineapple and other products are sold in supermarkets in Britain, Ireland and Germany. The volume sales help to control a price fixing cartel in the Philippines and the earnings help poor indigenous farmers’ women and children enslaved by the international sex industry to give them a new life while taking legal action to bring the exploiters to justice.
But this 31 year old Philippine development and human rights project which is a just cause, a worthy project is now suffering because of the action of the fair trade labeling organisation FLO that caused the Preda Philippine products to be removed from Sainsbury, the UK quality supermarket chain.
The low cost sweat shop supermarkets that do not respect the rights of workers and exploit them and pay bad wages for long hard working hours are blessed by FLO Germany, known as Transfair it seems. They also buy products from suppliers that are far from the principles of fair trade. There must be no exploitation either at the point of origin or the point of sale for any product especially those with the FLO Fair trade label.
The most boycotted multinational corporation - Nestle, also has a coffee partner’s brand that is blessed and approved by FLO. There is the Chiquita banana that is certified fair trade by FLO and they are linked to a multinational of dubious unfair labour and trade practices.
Another criticism of FLO-International is that it has certified only a few products, mostly of them from rich producer co-operatives and corporations. The small struggling farmer organisations in Central and South America are angry at FLO because their products cannot get the FLO label and FLO is now charging bigger fees they can’t afford. The rich are in the poor are out it seems. FLO International must be getting rich on all the fees and costs paid by the fat cat corporations. The FLO label it seems to be mostly for the rich not the poor. It will not be long before the world shops will have to pay a fee to be certified as Fair Trade shops.
Preda Fair Trade (www.preda.net) and Filipinos suffered big losses when its products were removed from the Sainsbury`s supermarket in the UK. Soon after they were removed FLO-UK asked Preda to pay the fees and get their label. That’s pressure and its not fair competition.
They want only their labeled fee paying products to be on sale. It deprives customers of choice. But the people hurt most are the women and children and farmers we help. I hope FLO-international and FLO-UK will change its policy. Preda dried mangos are still available in Irish supermarkets and in that UK excellent high quality supermarket Waitrose and all world shops. They are standing in solidarity with Preda.
The fair trade movement and its supporters and customers need a good ethical certification organization but no tone that does it for profit. That is where the weakness lies because they can then choose only to give the label to the rich and wealth and producers. What we need is an organization within the International Fair Trade Association (IFAT) and the monitoring to be financed by the European Union commission on Fair Trade. This will remove the profit motive and guarantee that the product and the organization distributing it are really fulfilling the criteria of fair trade. This will befit the poor and not the rich. This is what the fair trade movement needs not what we have now an organization that helps mostly the rich and allegedly discriminates against the poor. [End]
