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Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

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| 06:54 PM Oct 23 2018

WobblyJoe

United States

Because such things matter I checked my tea stash. Some are from India, some are from Ceylon, most do not say where the tea was grown. How can I tell if I’m buying child labor tea? I try to be strict about not buying things from places that use child labor. I think it is a First World abuse of Third World nations.
First World consumers support businesses which do things in places where the people are not sophisticated enough to know what is actually being done, and someday I think they will ask us to pay for it.
Compare the issue of slavery for American whites.
Low wage cost equals low final cost which means a less expensive product. It’s great for everyone except for the person who did the work.
Their great grandchildren might not accept why we did what we do when we knew it was wrong. Proof of that is that such abuses are not legal in any First World nation.
If I knew how to tell about my tea, I’d stop buying brands that use such abuses.
Oh, do Germans flush used tea bags? I’ve never heard of that, we just throw them away in the trash.

| 08:31 AM Oct 21 2018

Dorothee

Germany

Just some comments prior I mentioned that in Malawi (and some other countries) children are forced to work on tea plantations instead of going to school. The tea leaves they produce then get shipped all around the world. Now the German informative TV-show ‘SONNENSEITE’ mentioned another reason why we should not drink tea from Africa. Due to low precipitation, but also due to the long transportation and some other factors (e.g. tea bags getting dropped in the shop) the tea leaves we will find in the bags usually are rather small, crumbly pieces. After drinking many people just pour the leaves into the toilet. By flushing the toilet afterwards however you may cause the leaves to stick together and form a clod in the drain – which may cause severe damage to the latter. Plus said clod may prevent your toilet paper and excrement from getting flushed down properly.

| 06:19 PM Oct 20 2018

Dorothee

Germany

This week the UN clearly called virginity testings a violation of human rights: They say that these examinations are not only humbug from a scientific Point of view – many researchers state that a broken hymen is not a reliable indicator that a female has been vaginally penetrated because the tearing of the hymen may have been the result of some other Event -, but in cases of rape can cause additional pain and mimic the original act of sexual violence, leading to reexperience, more traumatization and victimization. Many women suffer from adverse short and long-term physical, psychological and social consequences of this practice. This includes anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress. Plus if the woman gets falsely accused of having lost her virginity – after all these testings are not reliable at all – the result may be even more traumatic experiences – like getting banished by their families or shunned by their friends, getting beaten and mistreated as a form of punishment etc.

| 07:28 AM Sep 16 2017

Dorothee

Germany

The German news show “Weltspiegel” now published an episode called “Kindesprostitution in Afrika” (Child Prostitution in Africa) on the TV-channel “Das Erste”. It says that in urban areas in Malawi the number of women who protest against the old traditions like “Your husband has the right to make you sleep with another man – so that you may get pregnant even if your husband is impotent.”, “Girls are to be married at the age of 15.”, “School is not important in the life of a girl. Getting married, having children, knowing how to make clothes and food are.” increases rapidly. Partially this is due to social workers telling them about the dangers of teenage pregnancies, the risk of getting AIDS when sleeping with a man you don’t even know and about the benefits of a decent education. Alas many families still are so poor that – even though they now know better – they still force one or two daughters into marriage with men from wealthier families to save their other children from starvation. They just hope for financial support from the wealthier family as they’d need that badly. And after all they don’t see what else to do with these girls. They can’t afford education for them…nor do they have enough money to buy them livestock and crops to let them work as farmers or something. Plus there are villagers who see this development critical anyway and send death threats to any woman who would protest against these old traditions. One woman even received death threats for saying in public that she wished there was a law for girls not to be married under the age of 18 and that she gave financial support to a poor family so they may pay for a proper education for their daughter.

| 02:50 AM Sep 10 2017

Dorothee

Germany

President Peter Mutharika will be going to the United Nations General Assembly in New York and is expected to present Malawi’s position at the High Level Meeting on sexual Exploitation and Abuse. At the High Level meeting of the General Assembly on the Appraisal of the United Nations Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons, the president will seek solutions to the emerging challenges of trafficking in persons, amongst other engagements.
Human aspects he is expected to adress include education, safety and security, nutrition and development.

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