Events 2015

[eridani]

117. WA Fair Trade Coalition Annual Breakfast in SEattle 11/20

FRI Nov 20, 7:30-9AM
WA Fair Trade Coalition Annual Breakfast

Join the Washington Fair Trade Coalition and Velma Veloria for a Fair Trade Breakfast fundraiser to learn what steps we can take here in Washington State to fight trafficking and push for fair trade policies.
Hosted by IAM District Lodge 751, 9125 15th Pl S, Seattle.Tickets can be purchased online here. Cost: $50 individual tickets; Contact Gillian for sliding scale options.

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2375868

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What does trade policy have to do with human trafficking?

In July, Malaysia was upgraded from the human trafficking blacklist to the warning list by the U.S. Department of State Human Trafficking Report, despite recent discoveries of hundreds of mass graves and trafficking camps. The outcry from human rights groups was immediate, as Malaysia forms part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a massive new free trade agreement in the works, and every indicator was that the upgrade was a political move as trade negotiations neared an end. For the last 20 years, NAFTA-style free trade policies have pushed a particular form of globalization on the world, making it easier for the largest companies to scour the world looking for cheap labor, while simultaneously undoing price controls that keep staple foods affordable, and stripping indigenous and poor communities of their rights to communally managed land and water resources. This mass destabilization of local societies leaves entire groups of people disenfranchised, desperate, and vulnerable to being trafficked.

Velma Veloria, former State Representative and longtime anti-trafficking advocate in Washington, argues that neoliberal trade creates many of the push and pull factors that lead to trafficking. "Forms of slavery and human trafficking are not just outcomes of globalization; they are part of the... process itself."