Soma Austin

"If it's cheap for you, it's because someone else paid the cost."
- Kirsten Dickerson of Raven+Lily

Tuesday night we were filled with sorrow and anger in hearing stories of children being sold as cheap labor in the Ivory Coast, and we were filled with deep appreciation for and a desire to join those who are responding to bring renewal.

Human Traffficking

As part of the Free Austin iniative, we hosted a film screening of the Dark Side of Chocolate, a documentary exposing trafficking and child labor in the harvesting of cocoa beans. Children in impoverished communities being removed from their homes and communities, being sold by grown men and women in pursuit of profit. All so that people throughout the western world (the US included) can buy cheap chocolate from a supply chain that is complicit in the trafficking problem. It seemed like all along the supply chain people were willing to look the other way and explain it away. But some didn't look away. Some couldn't look away any longer, and they responded.

Fair Trade

In the second half of the evening we met panelists from three organizations who are responding to the trafficking issue with fair trade. Fair trade essentially is an attempt to bring fair wages and fair working conditions to peoples who are generally taken advantage of in the production cycle, and then to bring those goods to market. This response helps raise income levels for families, helps them feed their families, send their kids to school and re-invest in their businesses.

Our panelists were Shelton Green of Good & Fair Clothing, Kirsten Dickerson of Raven+Lily and Leslie Beasley of The Open Arms Shop. Each one of them heard the stories of using children to make their clothes and saw what was taking place in the production of many of the goods they were buying. And they were horrified by it and their part in the process. So they had to do something.

New Patterns of Consumption

Each of the panelists was moved to respond, first in thinking anew how they bought clothing & accessories and then how they could change how we buy clothing & accessories. While they was a lot of great conversation around the issue, one particular phrase jumped out at me. While discussing the higher costs of fair trade products, Kirsten Dickerson dropped a bomb for anyone who had ears to hear it.

"If it's cheap for you, it's because someone else paid the cost."

Put more directly, in order for you to buy a 6 pack of socks for $5.99 it likely means that someone paid the higher, more painful cost of low wages and the difficulty of taking care of their family on $3 a day in pay. That's a best case scenario. In many other cases it involves child labor, and beyond that it can often involve young children trafficked from their family to work in oppressive conditions with adults who work them long hours and often don't pay them. Sometimes saving just a few dollars can cost others their families, their youth, their dignity, their future and sometimes their lives.

You can change this cycle. At the core of the gospel is Jesus paying the cost so that we can have life. Does buying fair trade costs a little more? Yep, it does. But it also provides dignity, fair wages and life for the people who are making it. Don't let someone else keep paying your savings with their life, but rather demonstrate the truth of the gospel by paying the extra costs so that they might find life.

What's Your Response?

1. First, go to the FreeAustin.org website to learn more about trafficking.
2. Second, read about 33 Responses 
3. Third, go the panelist websites, learn about them, share their stories and buy something. Good & Fair Clothing, Raven+Lily, The Open Arms Shop

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