I attended The Daily Beast’s Women in the World summit this past weekend, which was an interesting conference organized by Tina Brown.  I cried when women spoke about having been enslaved, raped, beaten, had their genitals mutilated, harassed, threatened, victimized by their own families, isolated, and injured in other ways.  I knew that the goal of the conference was not just to hear powerful testimony, but to try to do something about it afterwards.  All I can do at this stage is spread the word: women and children all over the globe are in a state of crisis and we must end their suffering.

When are powerful governments going to take violence against women seriously, when are they going to say: this is an emergency, it must stop now?

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“The Marriott Hotel in downtown Stamford, Conn., is claiming that a woman who was raped in its parking garage three years ago was negligent in the attack.

The Connecticut Post and Stamford Advocate first broke the story in which the hotel is responding to a suit filed by the unidentified woman, who was with her toddlers when she was assaulted at gunpoint.

As part of its defense, the hotel’s lawyers say that the victim “failed to exercise due care for her own safety and the safety of her children and proper use of her senses and facilities,” according to court documents cited in the stories.

The Stamford Marriott, plus the companies that manage the hotel and its parking garage, made the claim as part of a list of special defenses filed in state Superior Court in Stamford last month, the stories say.

In its defense, the Marriott hotel’s legal team claims that the acts were beyond their control and that the woman failed to properly “mitigate their damages,” the story says.

The Post’s reporter, Monica Potts, says a hotel manager declined to comment on the case and she did not get a return call from the hotel’s lawyer on the incident.”

***Please spread the word: Marriott is blaming a woman for being raped.***

Today’s post is about slavery and the cocoa industry. The first thing that I learned when I began researching modern day slavery is that there are numerous anti-slavery and fair trade organizations around the world. That is the good news. The bad news is that these organizations estimate that there are an estimated 12 to 27 million people around the world, including in the United States, caught in some form of slavery. I will feature all of these organizations and the excellent work that they are doing in future posts. Today, as promised, I will discuss cocoa and slavery and begin with the oldest human rights organization in the world: Anti-Slavery International (www.antislavery.org). I first came across this organization when I was researching the Transatlantic Slave Trade for my novel. It was founded as The Anti-Slavery Society, in London, in 1839. Anti-Slavery International is an impressive organization that engages in many campaigns on all forms of slavery in different industries and settings all over the world. I will feature Anti-Slavery International in future posts. Here, I begin my discussion of its work in the cocoa/chocolate industry. I say “begin” because this sub-topic of slavery is itself complex.

Let me say at the outset that I love a cup of hot cocoa on a snowy, wintry day. But, like everyone I know, I do not want to consume cocoa, or anything else, that has been produced by slave labor. I’ll share with you what I have learned thus far (I have more research to do) about the cocoa industry and what all of us can do to take action to work to abolish slavery in that industry.

Anti-Slavery International has an excellent brochure called “The Cocoa Industry in West Africa.” According to that document, cocoa beans were introduced to Spain by Hernan Cortes in 1528 and the cocoa drink became so popular that Spain set up plantations in its West Indies to meet the demand at home. It was not until the late 19th century, however, that production in Africa began on a significant scale.

Harvesting of cocoa is labor intensive, which is why, until the present time, cocoa plantations make profits if they use forced labor. Anti-Slavery International quotes a farmer in the Ivory Coast who explains how he buys slaves:

“When I need workers I go back to my village in Burkina Faso and tell my relatives that I want people to help me on my cocoa farm. If they have children who are still in the village, they will send them to me. I settle on a price with their fathers for each child….”

Anti-Slavery International reports that in 2001 the cocoa industry, human rights organizations, and trade unions entered into the Cocoa Protocol and signed a binding Memorandum of Cooperation.

What can we do? Anti-Slavery International says that we can:

• Support fair trade. Buy fairly traded products. If your local retailers do not stock fair trade products, write and ask them to. Go to: www.fairtrade.net
• Contact the major chocolate companies (Anti-Slavery International has a sample letter).

So, I e-mailed See’s Candies, my husband’s favorite chocolate maker, and asked them what they were doing about slavery in the cocoa industry. Here, in relevant part, is what they said:

“We do not make the chocolate itself. Despite the fact that we are somewhat removed from the actual cocoa bean, we do care deeply about the issue of Fair Trade and the elimination of any abhorrent labor practices. Both See’s and our chocolate supplier, Guittard Chocolate Company, are members of the World Cocoa Foundation….”

I looked at the list of members of the World Cocoa Foundation and it is impressive. I will research that foundation for a future post. I think that it is funny that See’s claims to be “removed from the cocoa bean.” So what are they putting in their candies?

Another candy giant is Cadbury, which claims to be the first mass-market chocolate to get Fairtrade certified. Sounds good.

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