Products of Forced Labor

Isn't the fast I choose: To break the chains of wickedness, to untie the ropes of the yoke, to set the oppressed free, and to tear off every yoke? - Isaiah 58:6 HCSB

[1] The International Labor Office (ILO) estimates that there are over 12 million people trapped in forced labor around the world, generating as much as $32 billion each year.

It would be easy for us to shrug and say “business is business.” However, the rich have often yielded to their yetzer hara[2] and abused those under their power.[3]

It would be facile to assuage our consciences by saying “they get the salary they contracted for.”

We could even try to twist the meaning of the parable of the householder[4] into supporting our view. Yet contracts can at times lead to terrible oppression. Sometimes, the poor will agree to a contract that does not even give them enough to live on simply because the alternative is no income at all! Consider the situation in Nehemiah’s day[5] and Nehemiah’s immediate outrage.[6]

We want more, more, more but don't want to pay a fair price for well-made goods. We would rather buy a cheap, inferior, ill-gotten, product of imprisoned slave labor, and replace it over and over again, rather than pay a bit more for higher quality product manufactured by workers making a fair wage. But Yahweh commands us to not oppress poor workers or deny justice to foreign residents.[7]

We cannot afford to be simple-minded in our approach to slavery and sweat shops, however. On several occasions in the 1990s, well-meaning people who opposed sweatshops unintentionally increased child prostitution because there was no other work for the children to do. In some cases, the children starved to death.

So our answer cannot be to simply boycott every product from 3rd world nations, but to make sure that our activism actually promotes a living wage and pushes for fair trade. Our activism must be intelligent and well thought out.

We must ask ourselves, “Is this product something I really need?”[8] The vast majority of the products of slavery are cheap, low quality extras. For instance, oppressed Christians in China have been arrested and while in prison, forced to make Christmas lights for American consumption. Imprisoned Chinese pastors often have to make cigarette lighters, mine coal, make bricks, or assemble textiles while subject to electric shocks, beatings and sleep deprivation.

In today’s global society where multinational corporations and their shell companies buy and sell each other at dizzying rates, it’s difficult to know the origin of the products we buy. In this case, I believe Paul’s instructions have bearing.[9] We should advance cautiously into the market, researching carefully what we buy; not only for its economic value but for its contribution toward justice. Many prefer to not really look, but the Scriptures are clear that ignorance is NOT bliss.[10]

If we don’t know specifically that a certain product has the taint of slavery, then we are free to purchase it. However, once it becomes known to us that a particular product is enriching abusive people at the expense of the poor and oppressed, then we are obligated to not only boycott that product but do what we can to change those conditions.

[1] Punishment Battalion Does Suicide Work; from the Buchenwald series by Johannes Steyer
[2] the negative impulse; inherent sin
[3] James 2:6
[4] Matthew 20:1-16
[5] Nehemiah 5:1-5
[6] Nehemiah 5:6, 9
[7] Deuteronomy 24:14, 17
[8] Philippians 4:11-12; 1 Timothy 6:6-8
[9] 1 Corinthians 10:25-28
[10] Proverbs 24:11-12