Mitch Teberg, MAAssociate Member

Journey for Fair Trade:

Bloomberg News Falsely Accuses Fairtradeof Child Labour

28 December, 2011On December 15th, 2011, Bloomberg Markets Magazine published a story depicting the life of a13-year-old girl, Clarisse, who is physically and mentally suffering under horrific conditions as aforced labourer on an organic cotton farm in Burkina Faso, a small landlocked and impoverishedAfrican nation. For the past two years this young girl worked under the whip to produce cottonsold to the famous lingerie brand, Victoria's Secret. The fact that forced labour occurs in fieldsacross the world and is foundin brand names of multinational corporations is not a surprise andthis issue seriously needs to be addressed on a global scale. However, what makes Clarisse'scase special is that she was supposedly labouring on a Fairtrade International certified farm.Radio Host, Michelle Block of National Public Radio (NPR) in the United States opened aninterview with Cam Simpson, the Bloomberg reporter who uncovered the scandal:

"Fair Trade, we see those words a lot-when we buy coffee, food, even clothes. But whatdo they mean? Well, when Victoria's Secret began marketing underwear madefrom organic, fair-trade cotton, company executives assumed they were helping womenfarmers in the West African nation of Burkina Faso.But according to an in-depthinvestigation byBloomberg News, in this case, fair trade meant children being kept fromschool and forced to labor long hours in the country's cotton fields."

(http://www.npr.org/2011/12/16/143859114/report-links-victorias-secret-with-child-labor )

Mitch Teberg, MAAssociate Member

Clarisse Kambire, right, works with other child laborers to harvestorganic cotton grown in the fields of her farmer foster parent.© Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

Simpson implies the abusive farmer in the story, Mr. Victorien Kamboule in the village of Benvar in Burkina Faso was part of a Helvetas organic and Fair Trade program which is committed to"to improve producers’ living conditions–especially those of women and small farmers–through a viable and sustainable mode of production. The story begins by describing therecurring nightmares of a 13-year-old girl named, Clarisse; only these terrors were reflective of her day-to-day reality:Clarisse Kambire’s nightmare rarely changes. It’s daytime. In a field of cotton plants thatburst with purple and white flowers, a man in rags towers over her, a stick raised abovehis head. Then a voice booms, jerking Clarisse from her slumber and making her heartleap. “Getup!”The man ordering her awake is the same one who haunts the 13-year-old girl’s sleep:Victorien Kamboule, the farmer she labors for in a West African cotton field. Beforesunrise on a November morning she rises from the faded plastic mat that serves as her mattress, barely thicker than the cover of a glossy magazine, opens the metal door of her mud hut and sets her almond-shaped eyes on the first day of this season’s harvest...She had been dreading it. “I’m starting to think about how he will shout at me and beatme again,” she said two days earlier. Preparing the field was even worse. Clarissehelped dig more than 500 rows with only her muscles and a hoe, substituting for the oxand the plow the farmer can’t afford. If she’s slow, Kamboule whips herwith a treebranch.

Mitch Teberg, MAAssociate Member

This harvest is Clarisse’s second. Cotton from her first went from her hands onto thetrucks of a Burkina Faso program that deals in cotton certified as fair trade...Forced labor and child labor aren’t new to African farms. Clarisse’s cotton, the product of both, is supposed to be different. It’s certified as organic and fair trade, and so should befree of such practices.Planted when Clarisse was 12, all of Burkina Faso’s organic crop from last season wasbought byVictoria’s Secret (LTD), according to Georges Guebre, leader of the country’sorganic and fair-trade program, and Tobias Meier, head of fair trade for Helvetas SwissIntercooperation, a Zurich-based development organization that set up the program andhas helped market the cotton to global buyers. Meier says Victoria’s Secret also wasexpected to get most of this season’s organic harvest, Bloomberg Markets magazinereports in its February issue.

A telltale green flag, given to its growersby local cooperatives, flies at the edgeof the field where Clarisse works.©Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

At this point I began to question, Who or What can verify that the farmer in question, Mr.Victorien Kamboule, is both an organic and Fair Trade certified grower, and in a Helvetasprogram? According to Simpson's story, his two primary sourcesof validation are a local