Freed consumer activist speaks of hope for human rights in Malawi

John Kapito, consumer rights activist and human rights defender, talks about his recent detention by the late President of Malawi.

I have been an activist for the past 20 years.

Advocacy and the promotion of rights is at the centre of the work of the Malawi Human Rights Commission for which I am chairperson and of CI member organisation the Consumers Association of Malawi for which I am executive advisor.

In both of these organisations, we are driven by our passion to work with the most vulnerable members of our society by ensuring that their rights are protected at all times. We are seen to be the voice of the voiceless, who are many in the developing world. 

The Commission, with support from the Consumers Association, made a number of public statements attacking the state on its continued disregard for good governance and various human rights abuses that included the limitation of the rights of people to demonstrate, to have freedom of speech and total elimination of space for consumers to speak and make demands for a better quality of life. 

In Malawi, like many African and developing countries elsewhere, the distribution of goods and services is under state control and, as such, the majority of the poor are unable to speak against the state for fear of being intimidated and victimised. Because of this, the landscape for participatory advocacy is very limited. 

I have had many disagreements with my state President, the late Bingu wa Mutharika. During the many meetings I held with him over the years, he continuously threatened to dismiss me from the Commission and even threatened my life and the lives of my family.

The President’s advisors recommended that the time had come for me to be eliminated. I challenged the President that what was said by his advisors was hate speech which must be condemned. The President accused me of insulting him and said that this was reason to eliminate me.

Two days later, I was told the President had died.

My detention

On 17 March, I was approached by a group of policemen outside a hotel in the capital city, Lilongwe. They searched my car and said they were looking for seditious materials that they believed I was printing and taking to Geneva for the annual meeting on human rights at the Human Rights Council.

I was taken to police headquarters and I was denied access to my lawyer at that point. I was moved between four police stations before I was charged with sedition and possession of illegal foreign currency.

They then acquired a search warrant for my house. Close to midnight, they took me home and searched my house until the morning.

I was then taken back to the police station where I was told that the authorities advised that I be granted bail on my charges of possessing alleged seditious materials and ‘illegal’ foreign exchange. I managed to get my passport back and was also allowed to travel to Geneva after two days.

Upon my return from Geneva, I was scheduled to meet the President for the human rights briefings. That meeting was very tense, with the President accusing me of undermining him and behaving as if I was an elected President.

I was also accused of taking human rights reports to the international bodies and, in so doing, I was responsible for the economic meltdown in Malawi due to my revelations of

human rights abuses to the international community.

It has been a long and painful battle with the state. It has caused many friends to avoid me for fear of being associated with the tough positions I took. 

But today I am glad to say that I have become a darling of many Malawians who continue to celebrate the death of the President for his hard autocratic policies. It is exciting once again to be a respected activist. The battle goes on for economic and social justice for our people.

The latest news from Malawi is that the new President, Joyce Banda, a former activist, is saying that Britain, the biggest bilateral donor to Malawi, is now planning to resume aid and normalise diplomatic relations.

All the charges against Jon Kapito have been dropped.

Consumers can make a difference to conditions in the banana trade

Eliana Guarnoni of CI’s Italian member organisation Altroconsumo explores the production conditions behind the world’s most popular fruit.

Bananas are the world’s most popular and internationally-traded fruit. The industry is an important source of employment and income for millions of people in developing countries, but all too often is associated with negative economic, social and environmental impacts.

With more and more of us concerned about the story behind the food we buy, consumer rights groups are increasingly looking at the ethics of the tropical fruit trade.  CI recently examined conditions within the pineapple supply chain, and this has led us to take a closer look at the altogether bigger banana trade.

The World Banana Forum (WBF) is the centre for action on this issue. It is a multi-stakeholder initiative that aims to improve conditions within the banana supply chain by bringing together producers, retailers, trade unions, NGOs, academics and exporters to share good practice and come up with solutions to the most urgent problems.

Working conditions

While attending the Second Conference of the WBF in Ecuador, I visited banana plantations in El Oro and Los Rios. It was particularly interesting to learn about the intensive use of chemicals in both the plantations and the packing areas.

Workers and the local communities surrounding the plantations have reported increasing levels of disease and believe that these chemicals are responsible.

Specifically, they say a lack of protective equipment and inadequate measures to prevent contamination in surrounding areas are to blame.

Discussing strategies to reduce the negative impact of chemicals on human beings and the environment is a top WBF priority, and in El Oro and Los Rios it was clear to see why.

But chemicals aren’t the only thing that poses a health risk on a banana plantation. The weight of a bunch of bananas is around 40 kilos. Workers in the packing area are required to move hundreds of banana boxes (each weighing 18 kilos) every day.

But workers are paid a piece-rate and in many cases they cannot earn enough to satisfy their family’s basic needs, even if they work 12 hours a day.

Women on the banana plantation

I also attended a meeting focusing specifically on conditions for female workers. Around 30 women from morethan 15 countries shared their views and experiences. It was striking to see how many of the issues facing women are common across borders.  

For example, women find it more difficult than men to get hired by banana producers – even though they could be easily employed in the washing area – and are often dismissed when they get pregnant. Challenges like this make it much harder for women in the major banana-exporting countries to make a significant contribution to their family’s livelihood.

The role of consumers

It was not uncommon to hear consumers used as an excuse to avoid taking responsibility for making real improvements to supply chain conditions.

One of the most recurrent arguments is that increased costs translate into higher prices for consumers, which, in turn, causes demand to decrease so that in the end nobody benefits.

But, in fact, studies conducted in several EU countries show that a significant proportion of consumers are ready to pay more for more sustainable products.

In any case, the price increase is often negligible. It is estimated that plantation workers only receive around 3%-4% of the final retail price paid by consumers.

Raising this share to 5% would mean either asking consumers to pay 0.05 Euros more per kilo or requiring companies and supermarkets to decrease their profits by 1%.

Consumers as a key stakeholder

WBF demonstrated to me that taking part in multi-stakeholder initiatives can be a useful strategy for consumer organisations.

It is clear that the consumer voice – which is so often missing in platforms like this – is very much respected and appreciated by other stakeholders.

WBF also shows how multi-stakeholder initiatives can be a really effective way to focus on the most relevant and urgent issues in a specific sector and to improve the research methodologies used by consumer organisations.

It is also important to demonstrate to other key stakeholders – whether its producers, exporters, trade unions, supermarket chains, intergovernmental organisations, research institutions or NGOs –  that consumer groups are monitoring how products bought by consumers are produced.

This scrutiny can play a vital part in bringing about better conditions in production and trade, while at the same time fostering constructive partnerships between stakeholders to achieve common goals.

Costa Rica will pay the price for cheap fruit

The Guardian's Felicity Lawrence on making Pineapples: Luxury fruit at what price for Consumers International.



While making our film about the pineapple industry in Costa Rica, I interviewed the buyer of one of the major European supermarket chains, who wanted to remain anonymous(they usually do).
He was worried that the most intense production of pineapples is based in Costa Rica's flat Atlantic region where the humidity is highest and pests on the monoculture plantations are the most troublesome. They need more pesticides there than the farms in the hilly, more windy area further west, but without the same economies of scale and with the extra distance from the port, it's more expensive to produce where the environmental cost is lower.
When it came to growing bananas, he wasn't sure Costa Rica was even the right country from an environmental point of view. The humidity of the region meant that 54 agrochemical treatments are typically needed in a cycle compared to only 14 or 15 in parts of Ecuador where the climate is less favourable to the sigatoka fungus that is ravaging the crop around the world.
Agrochemicals are an issue for pineapples too. Clearing old pineapple plants after harvest so that you can replant the next crop again is done fastest and mostly cheaply with very high doses of paraquat. Paraquat is banned in Europe because it is so acutely toxic. Some Costa Rican plantations avoid it – notably those with Rainforest Alliance or Fairtrade certifications, but they then have to plough in the old stalks and wait for the plant matter to decompose. Time is money and if no one will pay a premium for your efforts, it's harder to justify.
Other environmentally beneficial techniques don't come cheap either: buffer zones between the edge of plantations and water ways, protection of rainforest areas, making sure workers who spray agrochemicals only do so for a couple of hours at a time so that they are not out sweating in the heat and therefore more exposed to toxic effects – all these things cost money.
One of the greatest problems is that the transnational traders' and retailers' power outstrips the government's ability to regulate. Costa Rica is more stable, democratic and ecologically minded than many developing countries, which is precisely why it is so attractive to foreign investors, yet its environmental laws remain weak and have barely kept up with an industry that has seen explosive growth.
And, of course, the situation isn't helped by price wars that are driving producers towards the kind of industrial agriculture that takes a heavy toll both on the environment and on the lives of those who live and work in the plantations' shadow.

This blog first appeared on the Guardian's Green Living blog. Find out more about the CI's work on Corporate Social Responsibility.

How bad news can do good

Carsten Terp blogs about fear and hope in secret meetings with workers in Vietnam following a feature by the Danish Consumer Council on how Nike turned a blind eye to abuses to factory workers:

'By telling the stories behind the products, consumer organisations can give oppressed workers in third world countries a voice of their own. And yes, we can change the world…

"You must expect this call to be traced by the authorities."

The loud music in the café makes it hard to hear the voice on the phone. “You need to go out and buy a new telephone,” the voice says: “If you keep using this one they might track you down.”

We are in Vietnam to interview workers at factories producing shoes for the world’s biggest sportswear company, Nike. Vietnam is the new Thailand and China in one - a paradise for tourists and a cheap factory for Western companies. Yet the country is led by one of the world’s most repressive regimes. We want to know if basic human and workers rights are respected here. We know for a fact that press freedom isn’t. Getting caught means getting kicked out of the country.

However, this is nothing compared to the consequences our local associates face. They will be arrested by the police, interrogated and maybe convicted to several years of prison for charges of crimes against the state.

One of our local contacts got a taste of this when she was arrested after a mass demonstration for the rights of rural people. When she finally escaped the police’s searchlights she joined an underground organization fighting for the rights of Vietnamese workers.

Our local interpreter is a well-educated guy who’s constantly looking for new opportunities. He’s not scared, he says. He believes he can sweet-talk anybody, including the police. Even so he gets anxious when we take pictures outside a factory which produces shoes for Nike.

Later he tells me that he saw a car with people he believed was factory management. He was afraid they might call the police.

We don’t want to jeopardize the safety of our local associates. So we go and buy a new phone with a Vietnamese SIM-card. For the rest of our stay we only use this phone.

Both locals are Southerners. People in the South of Vietnam fought against the Communists in the Vietnam War. Many of them still believe in the ideas of democracy and personal freedom. Some take advantage of the fact that the authorities can’t control the internet – although they try. Both our local team members use foreign websites to blog about the conditions and lives of ordinary people in Vietnam.

Our presence in the country, however, is good news to them. They know that we are a weapon of mass communication. Through us they can reach millions of European consumers.
Their dedication inspires us a lot. We spend hours discussing how to make the biggest possible impact and how to raise awareness among consumers about Nike’s responsibilities.
We also discuss how to keep our local crew safe. We decide that we don’t want to risk being caught carrying incriminating information.

Thus, before leaving we email our articles and erase the files from the computer. We put important papers in an envelope and send it to Denmark. The rest are dumped in different garbage bins in a shopping mall. The last thing we do is to erase all phone numbers and text messages from the Vietnamese mobile phone. Then we get of it.

Still we don’t feel completely safe. When our plane is in the air we suddenly look at each other and sigh with relief: We got out unnoticed.

Now all that’s left is to hope that our efforts can actually make a change for the people taking the real chances.'

Find out more about the work of the Committee to Protect Vietnamese Workers and read the Real Deal on the production of running shoes, a joint study by 11 consumer organisations.