Email 
Print 
Celebrating Valentine's Day with a clear conscience
Written by: Joanne Tomkinson
A woman harvests roses in a greenhouse at the ET Highland Flora flower farm just outside Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
REUTERS/Michael Tsegaye (ETHIOPIA)
Who'd have thought that a simple token of affection this Valentine's Day could have humanitarian implications? But saying "I love you" with gifts like roses, chocolates or diamonds can sometimes have damaging effects on the people involved in producing them. Take cocoa production, for example. In Ivory Coast, which grows 40 percent of the world's cocoa, child labour and hazardous working conditions are big problems. Around 109,000 children work in dangerous conditions on cocoa farms in Ivory Coast, and between 5,000 and 10,000 children are thought to have been trafficked into the country to work in the sector, according to a 2006 U.S State Department Human Rights Report. Then there are roses, which are often produced using harmful chemicals. In Latin America, the use of pesticides such as DDT (Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane) in flower fields is known to cause health problems for workers. And diamonds are even more controversial, particularly "blood diamonds", which are mined under brutal conditions and sold to support a war effort. But there are some positive sides to the Valentine's gift market. Some presents, like flowers from Ethiopia, are great for farmers who see a 50 percent boost in export demand in February. In Kenya where the recent unrest is already harming the economy, farmers have been working especially hard to get flowers to market in time for Valentine's Day. Colombian flower plantations meanwhile employ almost 200,000 people, mostly women who might otherwise be caught up in the violence and poverty caused by the country's four-decade old guerrilla war. And in Sierra Leone, where the diamond trade fuelled a brutal civil war, the charity arm of luxury jeweller's Tiffanies is turning disused diamond fields back into farming land. Around 150 jobs will be created by the project - welcome in a country where youth unemployment is at 75 percent. If you want some advice about how to be a romantic humanitarian this Valentine's Day, the UK Department for International Development, has ideas for choosing the right ethical gift for your partner.
Reuters AlertNet is not responsible for the content of external websites.
Leave a Reply
When you submit a comment to us we request your name, e-mail address and optionally a link to a website. Please note where you submit a website address, we may link to it via your name. By sending us a comment, you accept that we have the right to show the comment and your name to users. Although we require your email address, this will not be published on the site, and is only required to enable us to check facts with you, e.g. if you are making a claim we can not confirm easily. Additionally, if you would like your comment removed at anytime, you'll have to use this e-mail address when you contact us. To remove a comment at any time please e-mail us at blogs-(at)-reuters-(dot)-com (address obscured to avoid spam) specifying who you are and what you would like removed. We moderate all comments and will publish everything that advances the post directly or with relevant tangential information. We reserve the right to edit comments in order to maintain the quality of the comments, and may not include links to irrelevant material. We try not to publish comments that we think are offensive or appear to pass you off as another person, and we will be conservative if comments may be considered libelous. Reuters will use your data in accordance with Reuters privacy policy. Reuters Group is primarily responsible for managing your data. As Reuters is a global company your data will be transferred and available internationally, including in countries which do not have privacy laws but Reuters seeks to comply with its privacy policy.
Unlike some other content on this website, the written content in this article may be republished or redistributed by any means free of charge. Any use of photographs and graphics on this website is expressly prohibited. You must check whether written content contained in other articles on this website may be republished or redistributed without the express permission of Reuters or the relevant third party provider.
