I Spot Fair Trade

As anti-trafficking activists, it’s sometimes tough getting dressed in the morning or even making coffee – knowing that nearly all of our products, from the clothes we wear to the food/drinks we consume can be tainted with forced labor and slavery.

There are a lot of great efforts to help consumers understand just how human trafficking and modern day slavery is involved in our products...Quite frankly, no one really wants to be reminded of his or her slavery-ridden purchase on a regular basis, or how bad he or she is with a tool that tells you that basically every product should be off limits...

...This is when we began to look into Fair Trade. Fair trade is a social movement and market-based approach that aims to help people in developing countries by promoting sustainable trade, fair wages and labor standards. At this time, a product labeled as “fair trade” is the closest we can get to deem any product as slavery free. When we shop, if we’re presented with a fair-trade option, we’ll take it!

Survivors Connect’s mission is to develop and extend innovative ICTs to help anti-trafficking efforts, and our link to the fair-trade movement was quite simple. SC partnered with the Fair Trade Resource Network in effort to make it easier for consumers to make wiser, helpful choices that do not promote slavery. Welcome – “I spot fair trade” a web-based map that allows individuals to identify where Fair Trade goods are bought and sold through out the United States and Canada!..