Is there a way to determine which products use slavery and to what extent?
Edit: https://knowthechain.org might work. Don't drink Monster.
Edit: https://knowthechain.org might work. Don't drink Monster.
It's highly embedded in the global food, textile, and raw materials systems. Typically at the lowest levels.
For example, Cobalt is a mineral that is used in virtually all batteries. The supply is heavily concentrated in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which notoriously utilizes slave and child labor to extract the mineral. Sure companies are trying to avoid slave extracted cobalt. However it is extremely difficult to do that. Slave operation A can just simply sell their product to Legitimate operation B and sneak into the supply chain.
Some links on food / agricultural labor abuse: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/02/01/582214032/wa...
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/07/28/426888946/be...
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/03/29/521971468/in...
And you can find articles on the textile industry's labor abuse everywhere online.
It's not a new concept. Most consumers like you and me benefit from this via cheaper prices, and will not stop consumption patterns.
Your second link has such a database. https://knowthechain.org
Thanks :)
Changing individual behavior is concrete and demonstrable. It's also harder and requires more of a sacrifice, which is why people don't do it. On the other hand, effecting systemic change is ill-defined and hard to measure. It's a lot easier to attempt (and fail) a monolithic task with no skin in the game than it is to clean up your own side of the street.
I'm thinking of the story of the English factory workers that refused to use the products of slave labor. It didn't stop slavery but they at least weren't complicit.