Vinnie Merryman / Feb. 15 9:00am / Labor Problems

Child Labor, War or Pesticides for your Valentine?

I thought this was a very interesting article due to the time of year. It goes through several items that are often given during Valentine's Day. These items include diamonds, chocolate, and roses. The article goes into a little detail to describe the harm in everyone of these items. They first go into detail on the red roses, mainly imported from Latin America. They are known to have exposure to many chemicals that many of the employees state irritate their eyes severely as well as many other ailments. They then go onto cocoa beans, where 40% of them are grown in the Ivory Coast. They have had many persistent child labor problems in the cocoa sector. It is believed that 5,000 to 10,000 children have been trafficked to or within the country to work in the cocoa sector. Research states that 109,000 children work on cocoa farms in what is commonly referred to as the worst form of child labor. Then there is the problem with blood diamonds, which refers to gems mined under brutal conditions and sold to support a war effort. Our last two presidents, Clinton and Bush, have both expressed a lot of concern with this particular effort. Clinton laid down the foundation and barred Sierra Leone from exporting diamonds to the United States. After they got around the ban from sending out of Liberia, Bush then barred rough diamonds from Liberia.
I just found this article to be very interesting because I would imagine that just about everything that passes through our hands has gone through something that we would not approve of; whether it be exploiting child labor or using chemicals to allow things to live longer. It is just ridiculous that you can't just get a good, quality good anymore for a reasonable price because the people using this cheap labor is going to make it hard not to buy their cheap products. Just a sad reality.

www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN1164048920080211