Christian-Muslim Youth statement on Trade Justice

Yesterday I attended the networking lunch with representatives from NGOs and faith organisations held at Lambeth Palace at which young Christians and Muslims reported their discussions and conclusions during the Christian-Muslim Youth Forum on Trade Justice organised by the Christian-Muslim Forum and MADE in Europe. 

As part of this Forum the young people present issued a Statement on Trade Justice in which, as young people of the Christian and Islamic faiths, they called upon our government to acknowledge their voice and attend to the crucial issue of trade injustice which is keeping millions of people around the world in poverty:

"... As faith communities, we are committed to upholding the principles of justice, fairness and honouring the dignity of every human being. In Christianity, Jesus said, "love thy neighbour as thyself". In Islam there is the saying of the Prophet Muhammad, "none of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes himself" – peace and blessings be upon them both. Tackling trade injustice is a poverty issue, it is a human rights issue, and it inherently concerns the dignity of our neighbours, our brothers and sisters around the world. Not only do fair trade rules offer opportunities for improving education, health provision, and other social amenities, tackling unjust trade in turn addresses social, racial, and gender inequality.

It has come to our attention that cotton farmers in West Africa have been increasingly side-lined as EU and US subsidies privilege European and North American cotton producers. This is despite the natural competitive advantage West Africa should be thriving off, given the abundance of cotton production in countries such as Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali. These unfair trade rules are directly affecting the livelihoods of millions of people in our world. It is unjustifiable for the US and the EU to push for developing countries to remove government support to agriculture while they subsidise their own famers at home, distorting world price through over-production.

Now is the time to act. We were pleased to hear that earlier this year you reaffirmed the government's commitment to ensuring the elimination of unfair EU trade subsidies. We now ask you to continue to use your influence, and political integrity, in the upcoming CAP policy reviews in 2013 in support of the world's poorest cotton farmers in West Africa by:

building a coalition for support for eliminating EU coupled cotton subsidies among European member statesbriefing and supporting UK MEPs to vote in favour of de-coupling cotton subsidies given CAP 2020 will be agreed by co-decisionmaking direct representations to the EU Agriculture Commissioner on the impact of cotton subsidies on West African cotton farmersasking your colleagues in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office to make representations to the US government to encourage the US to drop its trade distorting cotton subsidies ..."

The Archbishop of Canterbury's speech to the Youth Forum can be heard by clicking here.

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Ladysmith Black Mambazo - Homeless.