Protesting for Fair Trade on Halloween

According to an interesting piece in Yes! Magazine, “an anticipated quarter of a million Reverse Trick-or-Treaters are bringing the chocolate to you [this Halloween]—fairly traded, bite-sized morsels glued to cards that explain widespread human rights violations occurring on non-fair trade cacao farms around the world. ”This phenomenon was started four years ago by activists with Global Exchange, a human rights organization that promotes fair wages and treatment for farmers.

Other fair trade organizations and businesses partner on the campaign, but the program is more than an opportunity for fair trade businesses to push their own products. It has twin goals: convincing major players in the chocolate industry, like Hershey, to switch to fairly sourced cacao, and teaching children the value of activism before they’ve learned the meaning of cynicism.  It takes “a gimme gimme holiday,” said one participating parent, and turns it “into a giving back holiday.”

This article was originally published on WagingNonviolence.org.