Halloween Labor Rights Campaign Treats Communities to Awareness

Trick or treat program turns the tables with door-to-door Fair Trade awareness

By Danielle Lee

On Halloween night, participants in the “Reverse Trick or Treating” program will distribute Fair Trade chocolate door to door, along with information about the child labor abuses and chronic poverty of the cocoa industry in Africa’s Ivory Coast.

Fair Trade goods promote fair pricing, along with social and environmental standards, in the areas they are produced.

The program is an initiative of Global Exchange and run by Co-op America. Organizations like the International Labor Rights Fund have also backed the program in an effort to raise awareness about Fair Trade chocolate as a solution to these problems that plague the industry.

The 100 percent Fair Trade chocolate itself comes from food provider Equal Exchange, with products that benefit 40 small farmer cooperatives in 16 countries.

The program estimates that thousands of children in more than 250 U.S. and Canadian cities will participate.