His name is Fatao

In my last post I began documenting my thoughts about shopping ethically.  I mentioned that I choose fair trade products where possible.  I get to purchase my (usually) luxury items relatively free of guilt.  I may spend more, but feel justified in doing so as I trust the logo means what it says - that the raw producers have been paid fairly for their goods.  However, next Monday 's episode of Four Corners on the  ABC is called "Chocolate - the bitter truth".  Unfortunately the bitter truth is about Fair Trade, and difficulties within its implementation.  You can read more about it here.

The title comes from the blurb introducing the episode - Fatao is a twelve year old boy who works twelve hours per day without pay to supply cocoa for the chocolate we eat.

 ...BBC reporter Paul Kenyon went undercover trying to trace the beans that went into Fairtrade products. What he found will shock many chocolate lovers. In a number of locations he found the cocoa bean suppliers approved by the Fairtrade initiative did in fact use child labour. Some were exposed by a Fairtrade audit, others were exposed by the BBC investigation.

This disturbs me greatly.  Clearly the Fair Trade scheme is not working as it should, and requires far tighter monitoring and policing.  I will be interested to see what is revealed in the documentary.  And what can we do?  Buying Fair Trade items is a start, but clearly not enough.  It is easy to say it is primarily the issue of traders, sellers, corporations.  But ultimately it is our money that they are after.