Fair trade action

Trade and slave labour

From the late 1400s to the 1800s, millions of Africans were transported to the Americas as part of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. They were forced to work on plantations producing goods such as sugar, tobacco, cotton and cocoa, which were shipped back to European markets.

Much of the wealth of Europe was built on the slave trade and it helped set in place many of the inequalities in the world trading system that can be seen today.

Where goods are produced using slavery they are predominantly sold domestically not internationally. However, there are a number of goods exported to the West which are tainted by slave labour. To find out more and see what you can do download the new available as a PDF file.

It is recommended you save the file to your computer before opening it (right click and Save Target As). If you have problems downloading the file contact k.willingham@antislavery.org

To view this PDF file you need Adobe Acrobat Reader software installed on your computer -- it is available for free, click to download.