Blog #3 Fair Trade and Human Trafficking

Globalization has lead to the trading of more goods between countries. This has allowed for businesses to get their goods abroad and a lot of the time for less money then it would be if made or bought in the business’s home country. In turn this business’s can sell the products to consumers at low prices. Unfortunately, having lower prices comes at a cost.

 A few weeks ago we watched a documentary, “The Hidden Faces of Globalization,” which expanded on my knowledge of unfair trade. I was already aware that this was happening and that people were very underpaid in other countries but it wasn’t until visually seeing it that it cemented in my head the importance in the concept of Fair Trade. In the documentary it showed Bangladesh women working in terrible and unsafe working conditions making garments for companies such as Disney. These women are forced to work unfair hours, are abused, and well underpaid. Many women have fought against this and very little have succeeded in gaining higher wages. This really bothered me and really drove home for me the importance of having Fair Trade global markets.

Watching this documentary and then learning about human trafficking made me start to think and question, to some extent, does having unfair trade agreements correlate with human trafficking? I did not know how common and close human trafficking is to me and found this very surprising. One of the articles I read, “Bangladesh origin country,” spoke about families paying traffickers to take their kids in order to prosper in another country. We see a lot of people being smuggled across boarders in hopes of a better life and/or for the sell of monetary needs to a trafficker. I am curious if big corporations increased the amount of Fair Trade products they source for, if this would reduce human trafficking. My reason behind this is that if workers are being paid fairly oversees then that would improve their family wealth and countries economy. This would provide more economic opportunity and potentially decrease the amount of families sending members oversees to send money home. Obviously, there is many factors that contribute to human trafficking. I’m just curious to if this is one of them. In addition, there are many other benefits to Fair Trade then just money. Fair Trade products are usually of higher quality and also has been shown to combat climate change.

Learning the importance of Fair Trade has changed the way I view products in a store and why some stores offer the same products for less. It does make sense to pay more for a product if that means the betterment for another human being and the ecosystem. I am now actively seeking out products that are Fair Trade in grocery stores.