Products of Slavery

You can read the short transcript instead.

• Slavery has been linked to the supply chains of many everyday products and commodities, including shoes, electronics, cocoa, and cotton.
• Nestle, Mars, and Hershey all source cocoa from West Africa, where cases of child labor and forced labor have been discovered and still persist.
• Modern slavery is connected to crisps, ice cream, and lipstick through palm oil. The palm oil industry employs 3.5 million people. Many are promised high-paying work in another country, only to suffer conditions of forced labor upon arrival.
• Cotton is in 40% of all textiles and is known to have people enslaved at every stage of the industry, from germination, harvesting, and spinning to manufacturing the clothes.
• It would cost consumers as little as 1.8% more per item to double the pay of a sweatshop worker. A study showed that consumers would be willing to pay up to 15% more for slavery-free clothing.
• As many as one in three foreign workers in Malaysia’s electronics sector may be working under conditions of forced labor.
• Coltan and other “conflict minerals” present in electronic devices often come from forced labor in illegal mining whose profits support armed forces.
• Forced labor is big business, with profits estimated at $150 billion, or around £125 billion.
• Some countries have been making efforts to force companies to take steps to ensure their supply chains are slavery-free, including Brazil’ has a “Dirty List,” the UK’s Modern Slavery Act and the U.S. Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act.

Take Action: End child exploitation in cocoa