spent this early-afternoon w/ liz at another freedom forum presentation, this one on child slavery in the ivory coast cocoa bean industry. after a panel of journalists showed their slides and discussed their findings (about 2.5 – 3% of the 600,000 family cocoa farms in the region use children who are bought and sold in various markets, then forced to work full days w/o compensation), they opened up the floor for comment. the reaction ranged from outrage from the ivorian ambassador who was, all the same, furious to see his country maligned, to the glossy flat denials of the represenatives of the chocolate industry (“we really didn’t know”) and their powerpoint solutions to the problem, to state department representatives pointing out that this is a more complex situation than we realize.
that there was controversy surprised and excited me. liz and i agreed that we had expected a pretty routine thing: after all, no one could possibly argue that slave labor, particularly of 9 – 16 yr old children, was a good thing. but a number of issues people raised were thought-provoking and liz and i walked away, mulling and discussing.
she’s also thinking of marketing her strip to publications in the area, a la alison benchel’s dykes to watch out for. she’s using wifp’s directory listing of women’s periodicals in the area. yay i get to be of service.
ahhhh people just showed up; i get to be a host again. 🙂 more later then, i guess.