What is the Slavery Footprint of Your Kitchen?

Up until recently, I naively believed that slavery was a thing of the past, something that was wiped off the face of the planet some time in the last century. Then I started hearing about the tomato pickers in Florida that were virtually slaves, earning pennies a day and chained to their beds at night. I was shocked and appalled when I read this report and vowed to not participate in this by not buying food and other items created by slavery. Which of course is much easier said then done, as it's not always possible to trace the 'slavery footprint' of many items.

Now the non-profit organization Call & Response has developed a way to help us make better choices by determining our slavery footprint with an online survey and phone app.

Although they represent a smaller percentage of the world population than in the past, today there are more slaves on the planet -- an estimated 27 million people -- than ever before in the history of humankind. If you eat fish or cook with cast iron cookware, then you may have as many as 7.7 slaves working for you.

As a way to bring awareness to this issue and help educate people, Call & Response has created a Slavery Footprint website to help us determine just how much slavery is involved in our lifestyle and consumer choices. They have developed an on-line quiz you can take to determine your slavery footprint, as well as a smart phone app that will help you when purchasing items in the store.

Using rigorous research and data analysis, Slavery Footprint estimated the total number of forced laborers likely to have been involved in the production of more than 450 products - from cars (9 slaves), laptops (3.4 slaves), and smart phones (3.2 slaves) to diapers (1.9 slaves), cotton t-shirts (0.9 slaves) and oranges (0.1 slaves).

I found the survey informative, if a little simplistic. It would be a great thing to do in a classroom or with your children at home. That said, I'm glad that there are organizations out there helping us to combat this horrible situation and applaud any effort to bring awareness to this issue. The purpose of the Slavery Footprint is to inform and encourage consumers to ask their favorite brands to investigate their supply chains for possible forced labor situations. They do not name or target brands.

There's a lot that can be done once some light has been shed on a forced labor situation, such as the code of conduct that will be enacted this season in Florida, calling for zero tolerance of forced and child labor for farm workers. The code will cover about 90% of the industry and is a result of a farm workers association, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, working with a Florida farmers trade association with the goal to end human trafficking in their industry.

• To take the Slavery Footprint survey and get more information on their app, visit their website.

For more information on modern day slavery see:
• CNN's Freedom Project
• Your Tomatoes' Possible Ties to Slavery (from CNN)
• Politics of the Plate: Florida's Slave Trade

Related: Put Down that Winter Tomato!

(Image: Slavery Footprint)

Comments (13)

If you're at work and can't get the site to load, I think they are using some things that a work environment might block. Mine won't load and looking through some of the source, my proxy servers are kicking back. Check it out when you get home if you can't get to it now.

i'm using my home connection and the survey won't load.

i am glad to see at covering this though!

I'm not condoning child slavery by any means...but if you stop buying these products because they are made by "child slaves" these children are going to starve to death because they don't have a job to pay for food.

It's terrible that children labor exists but they are just trying to survive. Who's going to take care of them if they don't work?

Can I just say you guys are really doing a great job with these slavery-awareness posts this week? This is a subject near and dear to my heart and work, so it's great to see it more discussed from all corners, but you all are doing it thoughtfully.

So many places would have presented it with a tinge of "Slavery still exists, but use this app and it'll be all fixed!" I like that you're insightful enough to realize this is probably a good tool for introducing the idea to kids or maybe helping someone convince themselves not to throw away their 6 month old phone for a new one, but you don't pretend that it goes much deeper. Sure, in general, everyone needs less stuff than they have, and it's good to have to think about that every time you want to buy something. But everyone does need some stuff (eg, I blissfully gave up my car for public transit, but my transit provider still has to get trains to haul me around, so I'm probably still supporting slavery in my transit), and stuff comes from somewhere, and I'd like to know how to avoid supporting slave labor when I do need that stuff. While I don't really feel like this app is helpful for that, I love that you're starting the discussion.

Pingping--I agree with you to a certain extent. I actually draw a line between child labor and slave labor sharper than most are comfortable with. While, in an ideal world, kids wouldn't have to work, in the current real world many have to. Until we can get things to a point where they can just go to school, I'd rather they sew a soccer ball than be a prostitute, so to that extent I'd never boycott something just because it involved child labor per se.

That said, slavery and debt bondage, in which workers have no freedoms, no protections, are often physically and sexually assaulted, and are essentially disposable lives, I think are different and never okay whether they involve adults or children. Often overlapping issues, but not always.

I second Katt's comment - good work on bringing this awareness to us this week. I would like to hear more about workers chained to beds in Florida. Where did this information come from, and why is it being allowed? Is that not completely illegal? Please, more information! I wonder how many poorly paid farm workers are illegal immigrants. I won't state my opinion here for sake of brevity - however obviously if the authorities inspect these farms, the immigrants may be deported instead of being paid more. I am not condoning or condemning anything here, just trying to understand the issues.

I generally try to buy from local farmers that I know, or from friends who make clothing. But from big organizations, I focus on the ecological footprint, not really on the slavery / child labor impact. I appreciate the information.

My apologies Dana, the answer to the tomato farming question was in the issue of Gourmet. Those people deserve big time jail sentences. Making them pay five bucks for taking a cold shower with a garden hose? WTF?

http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2009/03/politics-of-the-plate-the-price-of-tomatoes

Interesting, this has nothing to do with food, but I recently blogged about "Is sewing cheaper than buying?" and made the very brief point that even if you spend more sewing, at least your garment isn't being made in a sweatshop. And while I thought about the environmental impacts of fabric, I didn't even think about the fact that the cotton being used int he fabric could be being harvested by slaves. I need to do an update.

@pingping Actually by buying those products we are encouraging the manufacturer to abuse more children. If we stop buying the product, it is the product maker who will be out of a real wage. So by making it clear that we will not support such practices, we ensure that manufacturers understand that they cannot enslave children and still make money.

Because of the slavery and sustainability issues that encompass so many things we Americans think we can't live without, I grow as much of my own food as I can, buy whatever I can at yard sales or thrift stores and purchase only fair trade chocolate. Living today with a conscience is difficult but how else can one possibly live? What if one of those slaves was your child, would you still support that particular industry? Thank you to AT for bringing it into the open.

This is an issue that's important to me.

But... SlaveryFootprint.org calling me stupid?

No. Absolutely not. I'm not referring people to your website and app just so they can listen to your condescension. There are better means of educating people than calling them stupid for not knowing or realising to what degree slavery still exists.

Attempting to live a mindful, conscientious life does not mean you get to sneer indiscriminately at those around you. Educating consumers and agitating for change is an admirable task, but you do not need to be a smug jerk about it. I daresay not calling people stupid might be a far more effective means of achieving that education and change.

@Sororitysheep Just FYI, I think they were using a phrase that was made popular in the Clinton years. James Carville famously said, "It's the economy, stupid" in response to then President Bush's foreign policy. That became what Wikipedia calls a "snowclone", a phrase that gets altered to suit the occasion. Anyway, the point is, I think it's debateable whether or not that phrase is insulting - they may just be using the political context to ask people to "get it". The phrase is used as a figure of speech and not really an insult.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_the_economy,_stupid

Please don't do this "with your children at home." I've been teaching for 15 years and research shows that children under the age of middle school are really not developmentally ready to deal with issues like this. Teach them that people all deserve to be treated equally, yes. And I'm not saying shelter them from the reality of the world, but a young child's mind is not ready to process things like child labor and slavery.