Ethical Shopping

Steps You Can Take to Make Your Money Help

Every purchase we make impacts the human beings involved in the production of that product. In the best cases, our money goes to support a person and their family through the paycheck they make for their labor. In the worst cases, our money lines the pockets of human traffickers who exploit workers with little or no pay in order to maximize profits for themselves.

While it is impossible to vet the source of every single thing we purchase, we can all be thoughtful consumers especially of products often associated with human trafficking: clothing, chocolate, coffee, precious stones, and electronics. Before purchasing items in these categories, follow these simple guidelines to ensure that your money helps rather than harms.

• Purchase a survivor made product. There are thousands of companies selling items made by survivors. These “Freedom Business” are not only intentional about the ethics of their source line, they are also creating safe employment for people who were previously exploited.Some of our favorite Indonesian Freedom Businesses are Kita Designs and House of Diamonds.

• Check for “Fair Trade” or “Ethically Made” labels. Products like seafood, coffee, and chocolate are notorious for slave labor in their supply chains. Choosing a product with a certified fair trade/ethically made ensures the integrity of the supply chain of your product. Check out this list of ethically sourced chocolate or look through End Slavery Now’s fantastic guide to slave-free products including clothing, electronics, home goods, food, and beverages. You’ll be delighted to find that some of your favorite labels are already in there. 

• Choose an online marketplace with vetted companies. Ethical marketplaces do the work of finding and verifying that the companies that they host adhere to best practices for ethical product production, so you can be sure that anything you buy from the site helps rather than harms. Simple Switch is an online marketplace for ethical and impactful online shopping, where every product makes a social or environmental difference in the world. With more than 3,000 everyday essentials and gifts, they aim to make it easy for consumers to make a difference with their purchases.

• Choose companies that give back to their community or invest a portion of their profits into anti-trafficking activities. Active Apostle’s activewear is ethically made in Bali AND donates a portion of their profits to Dark Bali as a corporate sponsor. Jars of Hope is a business committed to ending slavery by supporting anti-trafficking organizations around the world through the sale of their jewelry. You can find their Dark Bali necklace here.

For a great list of guides and apps for ethical shopping see this blog post!