It’s Hallowe’en in four days-our annual chance to get dressed up, freaked out, and pig out on copious amounts of candy. It’s supposed to be a fun holiday, so most people don’t think about where their Hallowe’en candy comes from.
Human rights advocacy groups are hoping to change all that through the Reverse Trick-Or-Treating initiative.
A sobering fact of Hallowe’en is that many of those little fun-size chocolate bars come from cocoa harvested by poor farmers or even child labour overseas. So TransFair Canada and human rights group Global Exchange are sending out reverse trick-or-treaters: costumed children handing out samples of fair trade certified chocolate while they go door-to-door.
Fair trade certified chocolate, like the brands Cocoa Camino and Just Us! that will be handed out, comes from sustainable-harvested cocoa on farms that conform to human rights standards. The idea is that reverse-trick-or-treating will both raise awareness of child labour chocolate and show people the options they have for the miniature Batmans and Hannah Montanas who come to their door this Friday.
The initiative, led by Global Exchange has the opportunity to be effective, as I think many people simply don’t know that their chocolate originates through indentured labour. Certainly, one of the best times to do it is during our annual orgy of candy. We’ll see.
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Hi Christie,
FYI, after a successful Reverse Trick-or-Treating campaign the Cocoa Camino folks hopped a plane to Panama to visit their producer/parnters and are blogging their trip at:
http://lasiembrapanama.blogspot.com/