"No trading partner or trade agreement is worth sacrificing our values and becoming complicit in such horrible crimes." was Rep Grijalva's immediate response to the issue of human trafficking in the fishing industry.
I'm lucky to have lived in Rep Raul Grijalva's district. Even though I've moved, I know I can count on him to respond to anything important. After reading the reader comments on Fewer Slaves on Boats the question came back to me, what is my next step on this? If I'm arguing that citizens should take responsibility, I guess I should do that myself. So I bought a subscription to the NYT, and I wrote to my congressman. Or rather my former congressman - I have no confidence in my new representative Martha McSally, so I wrote to Raul's office (no, I'm not on a first name basis with him, but going by Raul is his thing, everyone in his district calls him that). And as I expected, got an immediate and apt response, in the form of a quote from the congressman:
“Human trafficking, including labor and sex trafficking, is the modern-day equivalent of slave trade and one of the most reprehensible crimes imaginable." Rep Grijalva said. "As countries like Malaysia continue to enslave as many as 140,000 people, and commit other gross atrocities, we have to question the decision to upgrade their status in the recent Trafficking In Persons report, despite little or no progress in bringing freedom to those in captivity. No trading partner or trade agreement is worth sacrificing our values and becoming complicit in such horrible crimes.”
Maintaining our values above economic benefit is something we should talk about more. Republicans made themselves out to be the 'family values' party some years ago, but putting values first is where they need to be held accountable.
The idea of not becoming complicit is maybe even more important. If I buy cat food, and it was produced by a company that uses slave labor, I've got personal responsibility for the problem whether I like it or not. And recognizing that is hard and not fun - its easier to bury our head in the sand and just buy cheap stuff. People reading this article are on the high end of active, but I can understand how its much more attractive to just enjoy life and ignore problems. So how do I not do that in a sustainable way, that feels good enough to continue? Part of that is finding community in trying to change the system, and part is acting locally and using my purchasing power in good ways that also feel good, but sometimes it ain't easy.
Looking for guidance on this, I also asked Raul's office what people can do to be effective, and if there was any specific human rights initiative I could ask readers to get behind. The answer surprised me - it seems that the congressional ethics committee rules, which prevent using taxpayer resources for campaigns, also prevent congressional offices from coordinating action by citizens on issues. So they can do it on the campaign trail, but not as part of their official duties. More on that in another diary, because the whole idea of how we the people can participate effectively in making stuff - like laws - is to me a pretty basic thing that has to happen (and is happening, I think) to make things better.
For now, a simple step is to sign the petition at http://www.antislavery.org/. There's got to be more than signing petitions - but signing petitions is better than nothing.