Fair Trade Chocolate on Halloween!

On Halloween, chocolate is the tastiest of treats. Yet, in reality, our favorite candy is bitter sweet…

284,000 children toil in abusive labor conditions in West Africa’s cocoa field, many trafficked from neighboring countries
Cocoa companies pay prices so low that many cocoa farmers cannot meet their families’ basic needs

Will you help spread the word on [...]

Fair Trade Chocolate on Halloween!

On Halloween, chocolate is the tastiest of treats. Yet, in reality, our favorite candy is bitter sweet…
284,000 children toil in abusive labor conditions in West Africa’s cocoa field, many trafficked from neighboring countries
Cocoa companies pay prices so low that many cocoa farmers cannot meet their families’ basic needs
Will you help spread the word on the [...]

U.S. Labor Department issues reports on international child labor and forced labor

ILAB News Release: [09/10/2009]
Contact Name: Clarisse Young
Phone Number:(202) 693-5051
Release Number: 09-0946-NAT
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) today released three reports on child labor and/or forced labor in countries around the globe. The documents include the initial “List of Goods Produced by Child or Forced Labor” required by the [...]

The Day of the African Child: a sermon – Restoring the youth

 
Africa Files
 
By Rev.Dr. Mankekolo Mahlangu-Ngcobo, Baltimore,

 
African charter chapter#17: Every individual shall have the right to education, cultural life, and the promotion and protection of values.
 
The author now lives and works as a pastor in the African Methodist Church in Baltimore but was present 43 years ago when South African youth marched on June 16th, 1976. [...]

Official: No Easy Way to Stop Human Trafficking

Archbishop Considers Roots of Problem
ROME, MAY 22, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Though trafficking in human beings is a “tremendous offense to dignity,” there is no easy solution to this multifaceted and international problem, says a Vatican official.

Another 36 Trafficked Children Rescued by IOM and its Partners

IOM
Posted on Tuesday, 14-04-2009
Ghana – Since 2002, IOM has rescued 684 children who had been trafficked to work with fishermen in Ghana, West Africa.
The children, trafficked for forced or bonded labour into fishing communities in Kete-Krachi and Yeji along the shores of Ghana’s Lake Volta had been sold for little money by impoverished parents in [...]

MORE THAN 1,200 ALLEGED INCIDENTS OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING REPORTED IN THE U.S.

U.S. Department of Justice
WASHINGTON – In the first 21 months of operation, the Human Trafficking Reporting System (HTRS) recorded information on more than 1,200 alleged incidents of human trafficking, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced today. The HTRS contains data collected by 38 federally funded human trafficking task forces on [...]

ECPAT-USA partnering with the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) to educate the industry about child sexual exploitation

I attended the following meeting on trafficking this morning. There were about forty travel executives in the room. All seemed interested in doing their part in stopping trafficking. See the end of this message for the CODE OF CONDUCT FOR THE PROTECTION OF CHILDREN FROM SEXUAL EXPLOITATION IN TRAVEL AND TOURISM. To date 1,000 corporations [...]

Gaza pastor: ‘We cry and nobody hears us’

By Judith Sudilovsky, Catholic News Service
JERUSALEM The pastor of the Catholic parish in Gaza City described Gaza as “drowning in blood” as hospitals overflowed with patients.
In a message to participants in a special Mass for peace at St. Stephen Church in Jerusalem Jan. 4, Msgr. Manuel Musallam, pastor of Holy Family Parish in Gaza City, [...]

Anti-trafficking law hailed as a step toward eradicating the problem

WASHINGTON (CNS) — The reauthorization of an anti-trafficking law signed at the White House Dec. 23 was hailed by the chairman of the U.S. bishops’ migration committee as “an important step toward eradicating this scourge.