We Failed. Our cocoa is still harvested with slavery.

[Kire]

Dear Friend,

As our supporter, we wanted you to be among the first to know:

We failed.

Just over 4 years ago, Free the Slaves committed to work with the chocolate manufacturers and others to end slavery in cocoa production. We set out to do something that the anti-slavery movement had been trying to achieve for 160 years: to bring together—for the first time in history—producers and consumers to take slavery out of our lives and homes. For cocoa, this means a system of monitoring and certification covering at least 5 countries in West Africa as a beginning. And we said that we would do this by tomorrow, July 1, 2005.

We set an ambitious target, and we didn’t meet it. This is a failure. But we are not sorry that we aimed so high, because the stakes are so high. This is no time to be patient.

Twenty-seven million people are still in slavery, the many of them working in agriculture and mining, producing goods that end up in our local stores. We buy them. We are buying into slavery, one consumer dollar at a time.

Repulsed? We all should be.

To tackle this problem as quickly and effectively as possible, Free the Slaves targets not one business at a time, but focuses on an entire industry. It’s not about smearing businesses, although businesses clearly have some mistakes to correct, some checks to write, some supply chains to overhaul and a lot of learning and cooperating to do. We want to root out slavery at its source, and helping real people out of slavery and onto a sustainable livelihood so they never fall prey to slaveholders again.

In rooting out slavery at its source, we have had some real success:

* For the first time in history, a global industry took responsibility for the slavery in its supply chain. This is something the anti-slavery movement has been working towards for over 160 years.
* Participants from consumer groups, industry, and government joined forces to combat slavery.
* The Harkin-Engel (Cocoa) Protocol, which underlies this work, is a model for corporate social responsibility.

Free the Slaves started with the chocolate industry, but it won’t be the last industry we target. This summer we are researching the next commodities that contains slavery and we’ll need your help to convince these industries to follow the lead of the chocolate companies and do the right thing. If you haven’t already, be sure to sign our petition for slave-free trade to help support our work.

We will continue to work with the chocolate industry, consumers, farmers, and governments to ensure that all the commitments to end slavery in cocoa production are met.

We will also continue to push the envelope and try the things that others say are impossible. Our mission is to end slavery once and for all. The stakes are high, and we refuse to be patient.

Sincerely,

Jacob Patton
Director of Outreach and Technology
www.FreeTheSlaves.net

[lvx35]

1. You rock. n/t