Hi Reddit,
Thank you for highlighting this important issue on r/news!
As founder and Executive Director of the International Rights Advocates, and before that, between 1989 and 2007, General Counsel and Executive Director of International Labor Rights Forum, I have been at the forefront of every major effort to hold corporations accountable for failing to comply with international law or their own professed standards in their codes of conduct in their treatment of workers or communities in their far flung supply chains.
After doing this work for several years and trying various ways of cooperating with multinationals, including working on joint initiatives, developing codes of conduct, and creating pilot programs, I sadly concluded that most companies operating in lawless environments in the global economy will do just about anything they can get away with to save money and increase profits. So, rather than continue to assume multinationals operate in good faith and could be reasoned with, I shifted my focus entirely, and for the last 25 years, have specialized in international human rights litigation.
The prospect of getting a legal judgement along with the elevated public profile of a major legal case (thank you, Reddit!) gives IRAdvocates a concrete tool to force bad actors in the global economy to improve their practices.
Representative cases are: Coubaly et. al v. Nestle et. al, No. 1:21 CV 00386 (eight Malian former child slaves have sued Nestle, Cargill, Mars, Hershey, Barry Callebaut, Mondelez and Olam under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act [TVPRA] for forced child labor and trafficking in their cocoa supply chains in Cote D’Ivoire); John Doe 1 et al. v. Nestle, SA and Cargill, Case No. CV 05-5133-SVW (six Malian former child slaves sued Nestle and Cargill under the Alien Tort Statute for using child slaves in their cocoa supply chains in Cote D’Ivoire); and John Doe 1 et. al v. Apple et. al, No. CV 1:19-cv-03737(14 families sued Apple, Tesla, Dell, Microsoft, and Google under the TVPRA for knowingly joining a supply chain for cobalt in the DRC that relies upon child labor).
If you’d like to learn more, visit us at: http://www.iradvocates.org/
Ask me anything about corporate accountability for human rights violations in the global economy:
-What are legal avenues for holding corporations accountable for human rights violations i
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So the story of Sixpencee was discussed earlier in a tumblr scam post, but it’s one of my all time favorite tumblr stories and I'm surprised that it hadn't been done before. Nevertheless, it absolutely deserves it's own write up. Shoutout to tumblr user memedocumentation for keeping the links up. Tumblr history is notoriously difficult to research so it was an absolute godsend!
Also--this is my first post, so pls be kind. I tried my best to limit the amount of quotes I used. Hope you all enjoy :)
Who is Sixpenceee?
Sixpenceee is a popular tumblr blogger who posts about horror and paranormal related topics. They’re still active to this day, but her posts don’t have nearly the same amount as likes and reblogs as they used to. It is clear that she peaked in 2016/2017 and never fully recovered from the...fiasco.
I was never a follower myself, but I had mutual followers who did occasionally reblog her content. It's a typical true crime/horror type blog, you know the deal. Lets get on to the good stuff.
“Sixpenceee Heals”
On May 27 of 2017, Sixpenceee created a post titled “Introducing Sixpenceee Heals”. The purpose of this was to “help people break free of certain negative patterns in their lives.” Basically fake therapy. For 30 bucks a pop, you could have your very own “personal report” written by Sixpenceee! The announcement post read as follows:
>“So I noticed how unhappiness can really plague us. Sometimes life throws so many curveballs at us. It prevents us from being happy and free-spirited. I really want to reach out and help people break free of certain negative patterns in their lives, so I’ve created Sixpenceee Heals. I am an extremely intuitive and empathetic individual. I will never judge or disclose any of your problems to anyone. I will help you transcend confusion, and self-limiting beliefs so that you can be the best version of yourself."
The Tumblr community’s reaction was strong, to say the least. The post was seen as exploitative and naive on Sixpencee’s part, given that she was not a mental health expert.
The post spread like wildfire. It became a meme pretty much overnight. People who hadn’t even heard of this random horror blogger were now noticing her blog. Not only
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(I've mentioned before, e.g. in my letter to the IFoA's Disciplinary Board) that I was facing a disciplinary case from the IFoA, this is that case).
The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries has brought a disciplinary case against me for criticising Islam for its religious texts advocating/condoning wife beating/female genital mutilation (#FGM)/child sex/slavery/torture/polygamy/modesty culture/stoning/hand chopping/flogging.
In its Case Report against me, the IFoA says that because 4 individuals (2 anonymous, 2 not, so possibly 2-4 people) said they were offended by my criticisms of Islam for those texts/behaviours, that I have broken its Actuaries' Code principles 1 "integrity" & 6 "communications" for failing to "show respect for others" &"failing to communicate appropriately" respectively. The Islamist group MEND also complained about my criticisms of those texts/practices within Islam, including that I had made "degrading & false comments about Islam & its teaching" but without providing any evidence (when I challenged this) that any of my comments were "degrading & false".
I have been posting similar criticisms (e.g. Mohammed's support for slavery/child sex/torture) for years, but the IFoA astonishingly claims that it was unaware of any such posts of mine since 2014 (when I thought, following extensive discussions with IFoA Council & President that it was agreed that such evidence-based criticisms did not breach the Actuaries' Code) until August 2020. This is despite the IFoA having followed me on Twitter for many years! Similarly, several IFoA Presidents & Council members, several IFoA Executive Directors, as well as other senior actuaries have also been following me on Twitter for years.
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| Questions | Answers |
|---|---|
| What would you like to see the west do with regards to human rights violations ongoing in China? | The only real weapon that we have realistically to address human rights violations in China is to use the power of the consumer. We need people to understand that purchasing products that may have been manufactured by forced labor or groups that have been persecuted by the Chinese government allows those violations to continue. We hope now that trade policy can be activated by the Biden administration to have these consumer tools available on a larger scale like prohibiting U.S. contractors from purchasing products that may have been manufactured in China with serious human rights violations in the supply chain. China offers cheap goods but in terms of human rights, they are very expensive. |
| ^(the below is a reply to the above) | |
| Have you independently verified these claims of human rights violations? | Yes. I have personally made surprise inspections of cocoa plantations involved in our case and have observed and interviewed on many occasions young children who have been trafficked from Mali and Burkina Faso. I have personally investigated the supply chains of each of the companies we have sued and have gathered substantial evidence to support all of the allegations we are making. |
| Any brand name you recognize in your every day life that DOESN'T enslave children? | Most companies don't enslave children. The main area where that is a current problem is cocoa, coffee, and other commodity production in Africa. Other industries such as the garment and shoe manufacturers engage in extreme forms of exploitation of their workers, but they don't take the next step of enslavement. The workers in these factories are pretty close to the line though, in that they are "wage slaves". This means they earn barely enough to feed themselves to show up to work the next day. There is much to do to improve conditions for workers in virtually every international supply chain. |
| Is your organization doing anything to address forced labor of Uighur Muslims in supply chains that run through China? | Yes, we are discussing the situation with several other organizations to explore legal options. All of us would like to intervene and particularly |
Occasionally, a similarly nosy police detective (edit: sorry, inspector) will also get involved, as well as a secretary with an ostrich. (Television)
The most important thing a parent does for their children is make decisions on how to provide for their child materially. The choice of what clothes to give them, what food to put in their belly, what school to go to and whether or not you even choose to use daycare, all the other financial decisions is what constitutes parenting.
The many ways in which women willfully exploit fathers and their children through the process of taking full custody and going along with the financial exploitation, is the most fundamental form of Parental alienation one can imagine.
Yet clearly these women feel entitled to their own estrogen mule. in fact when they ask "where are all the good men?" they might as well be asking where is my bitch-ass estrogen mule.
To exploit and use fathers in this way requires the deepest levels of apathy and contempt. There is very little character Humanity in most modern women for not only do they exploit men around them in exactly the ways that I have mentioned, but they also set up their own sons to be slaughtered likewise.
Imagine Mommie Dearest as the person who set her own son up to fail...to be the ideal host from which her parasitic daughters may feast upon.... who supposedly "loves their children so much" that she will openly and willfully destroy their fathers economically and enslave him under threat of imprisonment and punishment notwithstanding typical dismissal of the father's parenting time.
What kind of subjectivity is capable of such things, I cannot imagine!!!
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| Questions | Answers |
|---|---|
| Are there any beloved brands that have a terrible supply chain that has gotten pretty much no major bad press? On the flip side, are there any brands portrayed as terrible in media (social or otherwise) when in reality they are among the most responsible? | Sure. We sued Tesla in the cobalt battery for EV's case because their supply chain was more easily observed and documented because California law requires CA companies to disclose suppliers in their supply chain. This highlights disclosure laws are helpful in this work to identify companies' suppliers and celebrate those that do good work. ALL companies that are making EV's are using the same cobalt mined by children in the DRC, that includes BMW, Daimler (makes Mercedes), Ford, GM, and Chrysler. We hope to be able to add them in a future complaint. |
| | We continue to look for companies that are responsible so that we can promote them and work with them so that we can put pressure on companies that are not doing the right things. Unfortunately, I am not aware of any large companies with international supply chains that are acting responsibly. |
| ^(the below is a reply to the above) | |
| That's depressing. | Yes, it certainly is but please do what you can to help solve the problems. When we come together, there is greater hope that we can change things for the better. |
| ^(the below is another reply to the original answer) | |
| What about companies like Patagonia and things. Where part of their message is being a company focus on people and supply chain. Are most of them real or fake? | It's hard to generalize when there are so many companies, particularly in the garment and shoe industries, that are making claims about what they are doing. I personally believe Patagonia is doing a good job of policing its supply chain and has taken steps in the past to address problems discovered, including child labor. I wish I could hand you a list of all of the "good" companies but we don't have the resources to make an accurate list. As previously mentioned, we do have a list of ethical chocolate companies and I hope that someone can create similar lists in other sectors. |
| ^(the below is a reply to the above) | |
| Mohop Shoes has been 100% ethical in every way since the day they opened, also a woman owned biz! 👏 | Thanks! I'll check them out! |
^(the below is anothe
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