Activists take aim

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Global justice advocates are urging US-based companies that profit from chocolate and gold sales on Valentine’s Day to do more to help the people and the environment where the key ingredients for their goods are originally produced.

A coalition of human rights and development groups, led by California-based Global Exchange, met with executives at the headquarters of M&M-Mars at the company’s headquarters near Washington, D.C., on Friday to ask them to start selling Fair Trade-certified chocolate — so that West African cocoa farmers won’t need to use abusive child labour to make an adequate living. The meeting was part of a national day of action designed to press the nation’s biggest manufacturer of chocolate products to buy its cocoa beans from farmer co-operatives that prohibit abusive practices and provide their members with a minimum price per pound.Oxfam meanwhile, along with Earthworks-Mineral Policy Center, used Valentine’s Day this year to launch a new consumer campaign, entitled ‘No Dirty Gold’, that is intended to improve the way gold is mined, bought and sold.The meeting was part of a national day of action designed to press the nation’s biggest manufacturer of chocolate products to buy its cocoa beans from farmer co-operatives that prohibit abusive practices and provide their members with a minimum price per pound. Oxfam meanwhile, along with Earthworks-Mineral Policy Center, used Valentine’s Day this year to launch a new consumer campaign, entitled ‘No Dirty Gold’, that is intended to improve the way gold is mined, bought and sold.