by Ann Bibby
I was introduced to Fair Trade by my younger step-daughter, the same one who frowns on my patronage of Starbucks. Whenever possible she buys Fair Trade goods believing that this helps producers in third world countries, and to some extent it does. Poverty levels have been lowered. Infant mortality rates have declined. Work conditions have improved.
But, while I was conducting a bit of research about the Fair Trade coffee brand Cafe Feminino, I stumbled across something that made me think a bit about our culture’s standard approach to improving the lot of those not lucky enough to have been born in a country civilized by western standards. Money does not buy women their rights.
Cafe Feminino is a co-op of women coffee growers who have banded together in countries like Peru in an effort to free themselves from their traditional model of life. Females in these cultures are typically not educated, begin working in the fields at young ages - for as many as 10 to 12 hrs a day - and are often married off as quickly as the family can manage it because they are a financial burden. Some girls are married as young as twelve years old.
Often the main toilers in the farming of coffee beans most women do not even have a legal stake in their own land as men are traditionally the property owners. They are also expected to relinquish any wages they may earn to their husbands or fathers.
What I found startling is that these women were the wives and close family members of men who were part of the Fair Trade organization. Simply raising the standard of living doesn’t necessarily translate into a recognition of the rights of women as people and citizens.
Cafe Feminino appears to be a Fair Trade operation that has fared well in empowering women coffee growers. They pay two cents above the going Fair Trade rate and this additional income is put back into the co-op where the women then decide how it will be spent. Because they must have title to the farms they are working in order to join the co-op, the men must sign over the land to their wives which, because of the additional profits, many have been persuaded to do. With land, training and their own income, the women have slowly become empowered and the cycles of patriarchal dominance seem to be ending.
It’s interesting that in our culture we have this belief that simply raising one’s income level will lift them out of antequated thinking patterns. Prejudice and discrimination are learned. Women will not attain equal footing in this world unless time, as well as money, is taken to re-educate people.
