Interview: Modern slavery

Academic, campaigner and Friend Kevin Bales talks to Ian Kirk-Smith about modern slavery

by Kevin Bales and Ian Kirk-Smith 29th September 2017

How certain can we be, as Friends, that we are not supporting slavery?

Sadly, we cannot be more sure than anyone else that we are not supporting slavery. And that is despite the fact that it was Friends who first invented the concept of conscious consuming and originated the first consumer campaigns to support human rights.

There are some products, especially those that come through the Fairtrade network that can be thought of as ‘safe’, likewise locally-sourced goods are more likely to be slave-free, as well as goods from those companies that make it clear in their labelling (like Monkee Genes) that they are slave-free. For the rest it can be a puzzle and a challenge to trace the supply chains all the way to the criminal first link where slavery exists.