About 25 people showed up to watch “The Price of Sugar”. Sarah Mitts—AWAZ founder and Northwest Fair Trade Coalition member gave an informational presentation about fair trade and the ways people can get involved with the coalition; the movie helped to drive her point home about how the simple act of buying consciously can have such a global impact.
The movie focused on the exploitation of Haitian immigrant workers on sugar plantations in the Dominican Republic, and the story of one priest Father Christopher Hartley, who was trying to stand up for their rights. The sugar plantations are owned by the Vicini family who have a monopoly over the industry and are the main supplier of Dominican sugar to the U.S.
The Haitians who were smuggled across the border by plantation security end up living in slum communities on the plantations known as Bateyes, where most of the story takes place. They were promised good jobs and good pay; the promise of hope for their young children. However, they were stripped of their documents and identification cards, and were placed under armed guard once they got to the Bateyes and never allowed to leave. In place of money, they are paid in food vouchers that can only be redeemed at an expensive company store.
Father Christopher worked tirelessly to improve the living conditions for the Haitian immigrants. He brought in medical care, organized the workers into unions, created a food kitchen for the children, and lobbied the government to restore the worker’s documentation.
Unfortunately, Father Christopher was forced out of the Dominican Republic in 2006 after a large scale smear campaign funded by the Vicini family accusing the Father of Haitianizing the Dominican Republic. While the Haitians were brought in by the corporation to do slave labor, they company pitted the locals against the poor Haitians claiming they were taking local jobs from people. The local news media, funded again by the Vicini’s, encouraged an upsurge of nationalistic values across the country that created tension between locals and Haitians. You see the same situation with the Latin American immigrant workers in our country, which undoubtedly is the result of the need to continually find cheaper labor and keep the profit margins higher for corporations, at the expense of the people.
The sugar cane that these people are forced to cut down is processed into sugar that mostly goes to the US and ends up on shelves at our grocery stores. The workers are paid the equivalent of $0.01 per lb of sugar, while Americans pay $0.70 per lb of sugar in the store for their sugar.
Father Christopher remains in Europe as a campaigner for human rights for the Haitian workers. He maintains that "daily and systematic disregard for fundamental human dignity in the forms of “statelessness” (and its inherent lack of civil liberties), human trafficking, extreme poverty, child labor, racial discrimination, lack of education and health care, and general squalor” still occurs.
WHAT YOU CAN DO: shop fair
Afterward, the movie sparked a conversation among the community members about how they can shop more consciously and not support products that are made through slave labor. Buying products from companies who source through fair trade channels is one people-powered solution to creating change. One needs to be aware of the labels that promote fairly traded items, and bring that conversation to the table --with friends, supermarkets, etc—to bring these items into the mainstream.
LOOK FOR THESE LABELS WHEN YOU SHOP:
Wholesome Sweeteners is one of the main sugar companies supplying fairly traded sugar from cooperatives in Paraguay that you can look for on your shelves!
For more information about the movie, or to host your own screening, please visit their website.
Partner with your local fair trade action group to host a screening in your community. Email nwfairtrade@gmail to inquire about a local screening at your church, etc.
NWFTC film series will continue on October 20th, with “A Thousand Fibers” about craft producers. You can watch the trailer here.
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