Open Letter: Journalist calls out Western media's blind eye to corporate misery and child slavery

Fernando Morales-de la Cruz

As many of you know, I am a journalist that has investigated misery and child labour in the supply chains of corporations and developed nations during 10 years.

I am also a human rights activist focused on the elimination of child labour and forced labour in the supply chains of all corporations and all developed nations.

I publish this letter in Africa because most of the media in developed nations is not publishing the truth about misery, hunger, infant malnutrition, slavery and child labour in the supply chains of corporations and developed nations.

For many years I have followed your coverage of the Sustainable Development Goals, the UK's Modern Slavery Act, the German Lieferkettengesetz (Supply Chains Law), the Canadian Bill S-211, the EU’s #CSDDD, the EU Ban of Goods Produced by Child Labor demanded by the European Parliament, President von der Leyen's commitment to zero tolerance to child labour in EU Trade, the G7 leaders commitment in Elmau and Hiroshima to eliminate child labour and forced labour in supply chains.

I have also followed the EU import ban of goods made by forced labour, the commitment by all developed nations to eliminate child labour by 2025 and the World Economic Forum's false claim that they are Improving the State of the World since 53 years.

While the 2,500 WEF participants profit from the exploitation of tens of millions of little girls and little boys in front of hundreds of top “mountain high” journalists that haven't dared to as Dr Klaus Schwab how many tens of millions of children work in the supply chains of WEF corporate members.

I am convinced that your coverage, of these extremely important issues for the Global South and for more than 5 billion people, is failing your audience/readers and specially the victims of exploitation by corporations and developed nations.

Our mission as journalists is to publish the truth even if the most powerful don't like it.

Too often you portray the defenders of the laws and directives promoted by the worst exploiters (companies that profit from the exploitation of hundreds of thousands of non-white children) as champions of social justice and human rights. Many of those NGOs are actually co-funded by the beneficiaries of child labour and slavery.

Their partnerships with corporations add up to hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

In one of my 14 visits to Davos during the World Economic Forum I asked a top Swiss banker what he thought about the protests by major NGOs.

He said: "Fernando, they are our pets, we pay them to bark. They will never bite us, because we feed them."

Too often you fail to include in your reports about SDGs, supply chains, labour abuses and rural “development” the opinions of people who are knowledgeable and unquestionable defenders of the workers, children and slaves exploited by corporations and in the supply chains of corporations and developed nations.

While I admire the amazing work most of you do every day, I must say that when you look the other way at deceitful marketing, false advertising, consumer fraud and ignore misery, hunger, infant malnutrition, slavery and child labour in corporate supply chains you are actually defending the interests of the worst exploiters, which no journalist or news organization should ever do, because false advertising, deceitful marketing and the exploitation in question are illegal.

In many cases, exploitation by corporations is a textbook case of crime against humanity because they have increased misery, hunger, infant malnutrition, child labour in their global supply chains with the goal of reducing cost and increasing profits.

There is hunger and infant malnutrition even in what G7 and EU governments and WEF corporate members dare to call “Fair trade” or “ethical” coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar,etc.

During the last years, I have been insulted by many German journalists for claiming that there are many uber rich German families that profit from the exploitation of more than 50,000 children.

In fact, among the German, Austrian and American families that promoted and supported the German Supply Chain Law and the EU CSDDD from the very beginning there are many wealthy families that have exploited each more than 500,000 non-white children in recent years, there are also corporations that have exploited more than one million non-white child workers.

I dare to ask all journalists that cover the European Union, the G7 and the World Economic Forum to make their own lists of wealthy families and corporations that profit from the exploitation of more than 50,000 children.

To elaborate the lists of the worst exploiters of non-white children you can ask the politicians from Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, etc to help you.

They know them well.

Of course, please include the wealthy families from any nationality that do business in Europe or G7 nations that also profit from the exploitation of more than 50 thousand children.

I don't dare to ask you to list the wealthiest families that profit from the exploitation of more than ten thousand non-white child workers because that list is very long.

To help you in your research of exploiters of more than 50,000 non-white children I include an image of some of the early supporters of the EU CSDDD.

This image also includes corporations that use deceitful marketing and false advertising, defraud investors and have profited from more than one million non-white child workers in recent years.

Of course, there are many other wealthy families and corporations with exploitative business models that support the CSDDD, they are not all on this very short list. There are also corporations that destroy the environment with chemicals that defend the CSDDD with the help of politicians that claim to be environmentalists.

This week a prominent journalist told me that I was wrong in my assessment of the CSDDD because I am the only journalist saying this in Europe. I

asked him: “How many journalists covering the EU capitals have reasearched supply chains for many years? How many were born in the Global South? How many are non-white? Do you know who was the famous journalist that said: ‘Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth’?”.

What surprised me the most is that my European colleague insisted that Gandhi was not a journalist. I told him to please watch the movie Gandhi.

I am certain if the press rooms in the European capitals and at the G7 meetings included more journalists from the Global South, I would not be the only one telling the truth about the CSDDD.

Dear Colleagues, I look forward to reading your lists of exploiters of children and your comments or questions. It would be extremely useful that you also make a lists of all the corporations that have partnerships with the NGOs that you quote as defenders of the poor children exploited by corporations.

Best regards from the Press Room of the European Parliament in Strasbourg,

The views expresses here do not necessarily represent the views of IOL

IOL