DPI/NGO Briefing

Valentine’s Day Flowers and Chocolates:
To Give or Not to Give
14 February 2008

Summary

The first DPI/NGO briefing of the winter/spring 2008 season looked at Valentine’s Day; how the day came into existence as well as why and how we love. Most of the discussion, however, focused on labour rights issues surrounding the cut-flower and chocolate industries. The guest speakers Mr. Kevin Cassidy, Communications and Public Information, International Labor Organization (ILO) Office for the United Nations in New York; Dr. Helen Fisher, Rutgers University Anthropologist; Mr. Steven Greenhouse, New York Times journalist; and Ms. Nora Ferm, Consultant and Founder of “Fairness in Flowers Campaign”, International Labour Rights Forum, discussed the issues within their areas of expertise. Mr. Eric Falt, Director of the Outreach Division of DPI, moderated the briefing.

Dr. Fisher began by discussing the impact romantic love has on society. She noted that romantic love was found in 170 societies in the world, and that people lived, killed and died for love. Dr. Fisher spoke about the science of love based on her extensive research using the technology of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). She said that love contained three elements: lust, romance and attachment, all of which could be identified within the brain system. She spoke about the body’s reactions to love, such as the rise of dopamine in the brain. Based on her research, she determined love was essentially an addiction. Dr. Fisher also noted possible origins of Valentine’s Day ranging from the ‘Day of Love’ holiday in Persia to the myth of St. Valentine. She concluded by saying that romantic love was on the rise and “the time to make fulfilling partnerships is now.”

Mr. Cassidy from ILO said that out of the 218 million children working in the child labour market, 75 percent were in the agricultural sector alone. In Cote d’Ivoire, the world’s largest producer of cocoa, many of the quarter of Ivorians who work in the cocoa industry are child labourers. This was partly due to the lower cost of child workers as opposed to adults as well as the ‘cloudy area’ between children who are being given work to learn a trade and those whose work becomes forced labor. Because poverty is the underlining cause of the problem, Mr. Cassidy cautioned against boycotting flowers and chocolate, which would only hurt the farmers and people who rely on this work to survive. He also talked about poor working conditions, such as exposure to pesticides, snake bites, and children carrying heavy loads of cocoa that may cause skeletal problems. He concluded by saying that ILO was working hard on these issues and encourages consumers to think about the people who are behind the flowers and chocolates.

Mr. Greenhouse discussed labour rights issues in the United States including the fact that there was no legislative right to paid vacation and no federal law to paid sick leave. He also noted that the US was only one of four countries in the world that has no paid maternity leave and no universal workers’ health coverage. He also spoke about undocumented workers in the United States and sited specific examples of labour rights abuses and minimum wage.

Ms. Ferm discussed her experience with workers in the cut-flowers industry in Colombia and Ecuador, which supply 90 percent of all flowers in the US market. She estimated that for two weeks prior to Valentine’s Day there are typically about 30 chartered flights daily to the US to meet the local demand for flowers on 14 February. Ms. Ferm also spoke briefly about the main differences between the cut-flower industry and the agricultural sector in general. Namely, because the majority of workers in the flower industry were women, they tended to be faced with very specific issues, such as sexual harassment and maternity leave issues. She also noted a movement in Colombia to rename Valentines Day ‘the International Flower Workers Day’, and stressed the importance of consumer demand for certifications of flowers and chocolates.

During the question-and-answer period, a question was raised regarding how humans dealt with the so-called ‘post-dramatic love disorder’ and strong negative emotions after a loss of a loved one to death. Dr. Fisher responded by saying that more research needed to be done and that people had impulse control mechanisms to deal with such issues. In response to another question, Mr. Cassidy talked about child labour, more specifically ILO’s International Programme for Alleviation of Child Labour, and how the Organization did not enforce but rather help and encourage governments to implement international labour rights conventions. Responding to another question, Ms. Ferm stressed that it was up to us, the consumers, to demand products that have been certified. In his answer to the question about the rights of illegal immigrants, Mr. Greenhouse was of the opinion that undocumented workers’ rights should be protected.

The briefing was attended by about 200 representatives of NGOs, United Nations and Permanent Mission staff. The archived webcast of the event is available at www.un.org/webcast.
UN Radio (Arabic, Chinese, English, Portuguese, Spanish), i-seek as well as Financial Times, AFP, The Sun, Unifeed and The South African Broadcasting Corporation covered the event.

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