There has been further activity around Nestlé's presence at the UK Labour Party Conference and we have issued a new press release with quotes from Nestlé and the Minister for Culture, who shared a platform with Nestlé, but distanced himself from the company. Click here for the press release if you are following that issue.
One task today was developing a funding proposal for a website project. We've had volunteer help in the past for developing our main site and could do with some more for this new project, so if you are a web magician and want to help please let me know.
Mainly I was working on an article, which I'll say more about in the future. In amongst it all, the emails keep coming.
Someone was asking for leaflets as she had been to a park that had only Nestlé ice cream and after speaking to the manager wanted to leave something written behind.
So here is a quick guide to what is available.
You can download leaflets from the website. See the quick link to 'downloads' in the 'boycott' section of our website. Alternatively, contact us and we can send you printed copies. Donations to help cover costs are appreciated.
Very popular are leaflets showing a baby kicking a jar of Nescafé, with the key facts on the reverse.
We have our '10 facts' leaflets which have a bit more information and are particularly useful for handing out at meetings where Nestlé is present. This is updated whenever we are doing a mass photocopying session in the office for an action of our own.
For more details still there is a four-page briefing called 'Nestlé's Public Relations Machine Exposed'. This is useful if you are trying to persuade school, college or work colleagues to support the boycott. This can also be viewed on line here.
There are petition sheets as well and you can collect signatures and send them to us. We'll hand them in to Nestlé at a future demonstration. We had 5,000 signatures at this year's demonstration.
Youll also find logos for making stickers.
We have a set of four leaflets we send to people who want to know more about the campaign and our work. These are good if you are having a stall. They are folded so we send them from the office rather than having them on the site.
Very popular items are credit-card sized cards with lists of Nestlé products to give to friends you've persuaded to join the boycott. An alternative are cards with the message 'Nescafé - No thanks' which you can leave behind in cafés or guest houses that don't stock other brands. These are available via our on-line Virtual Shop.
The shop contains lots of other campaigning resources, such as car window stickers, t-shirts and mugs. There is also a great range of books on infant feeding and our popular breastfeeding calendar.
I should also mention our newsletter which can be downloaded as a pdf file from the update section. You can sign up to receive alerts when new information is posted to the site. We can provide printed copies for a stall or passing on to others.
If there are leaflets you would like that are not covered by the above, please let me know.
Friday, September 29, 2006
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Breast envy?
A few years ago I saw an interview with Mel Brooks, the comedian and film maker. He was talking about his film 'I was a teenage Frankenstein' which stars Gene Wilder as the mad scientist who creates a monster and somewhere along the line ends up singing Putting on the Ritz and doing a tap dance routine with his creation.
In explaining the logic of the tale, Brooks commented that Frankenstein was suffering a classic case of womb envy. Perhaps this is written about in academic circles, but the nature of these blogs is to be a quick ramble at the end of the day so I am not searching for references - Mel Brooks will have to do. Womb envy, he explained, is a sense of inadequacy experienced by a man because he cannot give birth. Sewing together bits of corpses and zapping them with electricity to give them life was the way Dr. Frankenstein overcame this feeling of inadequacy.
This came to my mind as I needed to put together information on the Gerber baby food company yesterday. We have information on file and available through the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) - sometimes we simply ask partners around the world to pop down to the local market or clinic to see what is going on if we want an update.
We can also look at company websites. And there Gerber makes a big thing of men bottle feeding. With a bottle men can bond with the baby by feeding expressed breastmilk or formula, says Gerber. Well, yes, but there are plenty of other ways for men to bond with their children without reaching for a surrogate breast. And so Dr. Frankensteins womb envy came to mind.
You can see Gerber's approach in the September Campaign for Ethical Marketing action sheet, posted to our website last night. Gerber suggests its bottles and teats - which it claims mimic a mother's nipple - make it easy to switch between breastfeeding and bottle feeding.
Not true. If formula is introduced a mothers milk production is reduced so bottle use is increased.
Also the act of sucking on a bottle is different from suckling at the breast, which is why experts recommend cups be used for giving expressed milk. Some mothers prefer bottles, of course. Fine if they know the effect using a bottle may have on continuing to breastfeed. The World Health Assembly marketing requirements actually require that information materials explain the negative impact on breastfeeding of introducing partial bottle-feeding (Article 4.2).
Now Gerber shouldn't be advertising bottles in the first place - that is prohibited by the marketing requirements. But take a look at the example we expose on our website, taken from a magazine in Singapore. It says nothing of the impact of introducing bottles and, though it refers to the importance of breastfeeding has the slogan 'Shouldn't your baby be a Gerber baby?'
The baby's blue eye are fixed on the hunk providing the feed. The man may not be suffering from breast envy, but Gerber's message is clear: get in on the act, get yourself a bottle.
In explaining the logic of the tale, Brooks commented that Frankenstein was suffering a classic case of womb envy. Perhaps this is written about in academic circles, but the nature of these blogs is to be a quick ramble at the end of the day so I am not searching for references - Mel Brooks will have to do. Womb envy, he explained, is a sense of inadequacy experienced by a man because he cannot give birth. Sewing together bits of corpses and zapping them with electricity to give them life was the way Dr. Frankenstein overcame this feeling of inadequacy.
This came to my mind as I needed to put together information on the Gerber baby food company yesterday. We have information on file and available through the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) - sometimes we simply ask partners around the world to pop down to the local market or clinic to see what is going on if we want an update.
We can also look at company websites. And there Gerber makes a big thing of men bottle feeding. With a bottle men can bond with the baby by feeding expressed breastmilk or formula, says Gerber. Well, yes, but there are plenty of other ways for men to bond with their children without reaching for a surrogate breast. And so Dr. Frankensteins womb envy came to mind.
You can see Gerber's approach in the September Campaign for Ethical Marketing action sheet, posted to our website last night. Gerber suggests its bottles and teats - which it claims mimic a mother's nipple - make it easy to switch between breastfeeding and bottle feeding.
Not true. If formula is introduced a mothers milk production is reduced so bottle use is increased.
Also the act of sucking on a bottle is different from suckling at the breast, which is why experts recommend cups be used for giving expressed milk. Some mothers prefer bottles, of course. Fine if they know the effect using a bottle may have on continuing to breastfeed. The World Health Assembly marketing requirements actually require that information materials explain the negative impact on breastfeeding of introducing partial bottle-feeding (Article 4.2).
Now Gerber shouldn't be advertising bottles in the first place - that is prohibited by the marketing requirements. But take a look at the example we expose on our website, taken from a magazine in Singapore. It says nothing of the impact of introducing bottles and, though it refers to the importance of breastfeeding has the slogan 'Shouldn't your baby be a Gerber baby?'
The baby's blue eye are fixed on the hunk providing the feed. The man may not be suffering from breast envy, but Gerber's message is clear: get in on the act, get yourself a bottle.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Boycott art wanted
Boycott art wanted
Lots going on today, which will be covered in coming blogs.
In amongst it all one of the emails that dropped into my inbox was an offer of volunteer help with designing materials.
We have had some great designs over the years. I particularly like the Fight the Nestlé monster logo donated to us by graphic designer, Rebecca Clark. You can see it by clicking here.
Someone suggested recently that we put it on a t-shirt to sell for spreading the word and bringing in a bit of money. If you are interested please let me know or leave your comments at the foot of this blog. If we have enough interest to justify investing, well go ahead.
Other designs are welcome. You can see some other examples of boycott art by clicking here and in the downloads section.
Last October I attended a Swiss tribunal into Nestlés trade union busting activities in Colombia. Members of the food workers union had travelled to Switzerland to participate and there was a video link to a parallel meeting in Colombia. There as the backdrop at the Colombia meeting was the Nestlé vulture logo which had been downloaded from our website.
So if you contribute a design you never know how far it will travel exposing Nestlé malpractice.
A particular need we have at present is for posters and leaflets for use in shops to explain why Nestlé products are not being stocked. We have the baby kicking the Nescafé leaflets (which we can supply or you can download), but most shops that support the boycott exclude all Nestlé products. So for a long time we have been trying to put together a design and slogan which will be eye-catching and immediately make sense. Any ideas? We can provide text for the back of the leaflet.
If this is not for you, perhaps you have artistic friends who can put their minds to it.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Australia to Manchester and back again
In amongst today's activities the campaign in Australia came up on the Nestlé boycott email group. You can join the email group via the boycott section of http://www.babymilkaction.org/
The boycott in Australia was coordinated by the Australian Oxfam organisation, Community Aid Abroad. In recent years it has been less active and now links through to a campaign website run by boycott supporter Danny Yee. See
http://www.caa.org.au/CAA/BFAG/index.html
Interestingly Australia is one of the countries where independent polling finds Nestlé has a particularly bad reputation (see The Times). In the past Australian television has conducted its own investigation of Nestlé in the past, producing powerful and distressing images of the impact of aggressive marketing.
Although we count 20 countries as having groups that have launched the boycott, there are active boycotters in many more countries, some of whom are in contact with Baby Milk Action through the website and other means. You can hear interviews with some of those who attended the European meeting of the International Baby Food Action Network earlier this year. Click here.
But having a group to act as a contact point greatly strengthens a national campaign. Baby Milk Action can provide materials, such as the files and logos for printing leaflets and posters, and regular information updates. Contact me if you are interested in promoting the boycott in your country.
One of the tasks today was briefing a major UK campaigning organisation on the strategies we have used to promote the boycott and other aspects of the campaign.
Fundamental to a successful campaign is having accurate information. Nestlé is the target of a boycott because monitoring shows it to be responsible for more violations of the marketing requirements than any other company. To single it out for action and to make these allegations, we have to be sure of the facts. If Nestlé had grounds to take legal action to stop us accusing it of systematic and institutionalised malpractice then it surely would do so. Nestlé is a most litigious company, taking legal action against competitors and governments and fighting in the courts for years when challenged over illegal activities (such as its baby food labelling in India and water extraction in Brazil).
Nestlé has never taken legal action against Baby Milk Action.
On the other hand, Baby Milk Action did report Nestlé to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) over an anti-boycott advertisement in which it claimed it markets infant formula ethically and responsibly and after a two-year investigation we won, in 1999, on all counts. However, Nestlé continues to make similar claims in its public relations materials and statements, which are not covered by the ASA.
So it proved at the Nestlé-sponsored fringe meeting at the Labour Party Conference tonight, according to the first reports. In the end it was my colleague who made the trek up to Manchester. Participants received leaflets from boycott supporters as they arrived. Apparently many questioned Nestlés presence at the meeting and Culture Minister, David Lammy, pointed out his participation should not be taken as an endorsement of Nestlé. It remains to be seen if Nestlés reception is reported more widely.
The danger to the campaign and the need for our response can be seen by this report on the partnership between Nestlé and the Christian Socialist Movement, which appeared on the website of Premier Christian Radio (click here):
------
----
So even though it may not have been the organisers intention, in this report at least the message is they are now friends with Nestlé. The boycott and unethical behaviour is presented as in the past.
Fortunately the damage limitation exercise we were compelled to take has had some impact, at least in cyber space, with the controversy being highlighted in reports such as this in Australia (click here) which linked to the full news agency article I mentioned yesterday:
-----
-----
So by targeting Nestlé in Manchester, the controversy over Nestlé gains publicity once more in Australia and elsewhere. The full report gives the details of why. The inclusion of our name brings new people to our website. If we had done nothing, Australians could also have been reading "Christian Socialists make friends with Nestle".
This exposure may not be noticed by Members of Parliament and delegates at the Labour Party Conference, of course. Unless it becomes a talking point at Conference, all they will see is the promotion for the event. See the CSM advertisement on our website to see what Nestlé linking its name with reputable organisations looks like (click here).
Work more directly impacting on the realities faced by people in developing countries goes on, of course, today including investigating a Nestlé promotion in Brunei, where Nestlé is giving away 5,000 free tins of Neslac formula, a milk for babies of one year of age. click here. More on this in the near future.
It is the same company, of course. On the one hand devising promotions to increase sales. On the other hand investing in events at the Labour Party Conference to improve its image and undermine the campaign to hold it to account.
Nestlé has a joined up strategy.
To be effective, campaigners must be aware of the big picture and understand when and where to focus their resources.
The boycott in Australia was coordinated by the Australian Oxfam organisation, Community Aid Abroad. In recent years it has been less active and now links through to a campaign website run by boycott supporter Danny Yee. See
http://www.caa.org.au/CAA/BFAG/index.html
Interestingly Australia is one of the countries where independent polling finds Nestlé has a particularly bad reputation (see The Times). In the past Australian television has conducted its own investigation of Nestlé in the past, producing powerful and distressing images of the impact of aggressive marketing.
Although we count 20 countries as having groups that have launched the boycott, there are active boycotters in many more countries, some of whom are in contact with Baby Milk Action through the website and other means. You can hear interviews with some of those who attended the European meeting of the International Baby Food Action Network earlier this year. Click here.
But having a group to act as a contact point greatly strengthens a national campaign. Baby Milk Action can provide materials, such as the files and logos for printing leaflets and posters, and regular information updates. Contact me if you are interested in promoting the boycott in your country.
One of the tasks today was briefing a major UK campaigning organisation on the strategies we have used to promote the boycott and other aspects of the campaign.
Fundamental to a successful campaign is having accurate information. Nestlé is the target of a boycott because monitoring shows it to be responsible for more violations of the marketing requirements than any other company. To single it out for action and to make these allegations, we have to be sure of the facts. If Nestlé had grounds to take legal action to stop us accusing it of systematic and institutionalised malpractice then it surely would do so. Nestlé is a most litigious company, taking legal action against competitors and governments and fighting in the courts for years when challenged over illegal activities (such as its baby food labelling in India and water extraction in Brazil).
Nestlé has never taken legal action against Baby Milk Action.
On the other hand, Baby Milk Action did report Nestlé to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) over an anti-boycott advertisement in which it claimed it markets infant formula ethically and responsibly and after a two-year investigation we won, in 1999, on all counts. However, Nestlé continues to make similar claims in its public relations materials and statements, which are not covered by the ASA.
So it proved at the Nestlé-sponsored fringe meeting at the Labour Party Conference tonight, according to the first reports. In the end it was my colleague who made the trek up to Manchester. Participants received leaflets from boycott supporters as they arrived. Apparently many questioned Nestlés presence at the meeting and Culture Minister, David Lammy, pointed out his participation should not be taken as an endorsement of Nestlé. It remains to be seen if Nestlés reception is reported more widely.
The danger to the campaign and the need for our response can be seen by this report on the partnership between Nestlé and the Christian Socialist Movement, which appeared on the website of Premier Christian Radio (click here):
------
Christian Socialists make friends with Nestle
The Christian Socialist Movement have defended their move to allow Nestle to sponsor them at this year's Labour party conference.
CSM say they feel it's time to engage with the food giant.
In the past religious groups have boycotted Nestle, saying their policy of promoting babymilk over breastmilk in developing countries was unethical.
----
So even though it may not have been the organisers intention, in this report at least the message is they are now friends with Nestlé. The boycott and unethical behaviour is presented as in the past.
Fortunately the damage limitation exercise we were compelled to take has had some impact, at least in cyber space, with the controversy being highlighted in reports such as this in Australia (click here) which linked to the full news agency article I mentioned yesterday:
-----
The Christian Socialist Movement (CSM) has defended its controversial decision to allow Nestle UK to sponsor one of its events at this year's Labour party conference.
The event which will be attended by Minister for Culture David Lammy MP is set to examine what governments, business and civil society are doing about forced labour.
Its sponsorship by Nestle UK however has drawn fire from campaigners Baby Milk Action.
"Nestle is keen to link with reputable organisations in its attempts to counter its reputation as the world's 'least responsible company'"Mike Brady, Campaigns and Networking Coordinator at Baby Milk Action told Ekklesia.
-----
So by targeting Nestlé in Manchester, the controversy over Nestlé gains publicity once more in Australia and elsewhere. The full report gives the details of why. The inclusion of our name brings new people to our website. If we had done nothing, Australians could also have been reading "Christian Socialists make friends with Nestle".
This exposure may not be noticed by Members of Parliament and delegates at the Labour Party Conference, of course. Unless it becomes a talking point at Conference, all they will see is the promotion for the event. See the CSM advertisement on our website to see what Nestlé linking its name with reputable organisations looks like (click here).
Work more directly impacting on the realities faced by people in developing countries goes on, of course, today including investigating a Nestlé promotion in Brunei, where Nestlé is giving away 5,000 free tins of Neslac formula, a milk for babies of one year of age. click here. More on this in the near future.
It is the same company, of course. On the one hand devising promotions to increase sales. On the other hand investing in events at the Labour Party Conference to improve its image and undermine the campaign to hold it to account.
Nestlé has a joined up strategy.
To be effective, campaigners must be aware of the big picture and understand when and where to focus their resources.
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Another day in the office
So what do I do all day?
Well there is too much to be done, so sometimes it is the deadlines that dictate.
First off was sending a funding proposal to try to obtain a grant. Organisations such as ours usually can expect to receive a few thousand pounds from a charitable trust for a successful application. But there is a lot of competition, which means sending out a lot of proposals. Yesterday we had a directors meeting and looking at the budget we will have to cut back staff hours again from October if some of these dont bite.
Emails are popping into the inbox continuously so I keep an eye on those in case there is anything urgent or quick and easy to answer. So a few exchanges with colleagues in the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) on pressing business. One of our key partners is the International Code Documentation Centre in Penang, Malaysia, which coordinates global monitoring projects, training of legislators and is an all round expert on the marketing requirements.
A boycotter in Belgium wants to know if Nestea is a Nestlé product. It is.
There was a deadline for nominating Nestlé for an award for being an irresponsible company, so that was drafted a few days ago, bounced around the network and submitted today. These awards can be valuable for putting the spotlight on corporate malpractice. Last year Nestlé won a global internet vote for worlds least responsible company by a large margin. The media have picked up on this. A few months back we had a lot of coverage in the press when LOreal was taking over Body Shop. Nestlé owns 28% of LOreal so will profit from people shopping at Body Shop. We conducted a quick survey of boycott supporters through the website and 99% of 500 respondents said they would add Body Shop to their personal boycott. So articles on changes in the cosmetic industry flagged up the boycott, Nestlés baby food marketing malpractice and sometimes quoted Nestlés status as least responsible company. When we have no money for advertising, such publicity is invaluable for keeping the issue in the public eye and the pressure on Nestlé.
Then one of those issues that comes along and disrupts the best laid work plans. Nestlé is due to sponsor a meeting at the Labour Party Conference on Monday. It is being organised by the Christian Socialist Movement and apparently the decision to work with Nestlé was very controversial - quite rightly. It is one thing to share a platform with Nestlé to raise concerns about its business practices - we push for Nestlé to debate with us - but quite another to take its money and then publicise it as sponnsor and speaker at a meeting. Nestlé crops up a meetings like this with reputable organisations and people who see the publicity sometimes assume it means it has changed its unethical behaviour. Even if campaigners can attend the event and put it on the spot from the floor that does not undo the PR (public relations) impact of the event publicity and the fact Nestlé will use its 'partnership' long after the event has passed. So we have to make sure the message gets out that there are still concerns to try to limit the damage.
The controversy in this case has already been picked up by a religious news agency, which included a long quote from me about our disappointment. See Ekklesia
Were concerned because of the event undermining our work on the baby milk issue. But the meeting is about slavery and I know that Nestlé has been taken to court in the US for failing to act over child slavery in its cocoa supply chain. So I contacted the organisers of that campaign and it turned out US Senator Horkins had called a meeting for chocolate companies to explain why they hadnt acted on the Horkins-Engel protocol introduced in 2001 to end child slavery. Campaigners have heard Nestlé and the other companies were refusing to attend the meeting, claiming no-one is available. So no-one from Nestlé is apparently available for a meeting where they will be put on the spot on 18 September, but the Head of Corporate Affairs is going on the 25 September to the fringe meeting at the Labour Party Conference to explain all the wonderful work the company is doing to end forced labour. In a spirit of solidarity with the trafficked and abused children in Ivory Coast I recorded an interview with the International Labour Rights Fund to put on our website, which you can hear by clicking http://www.babymilkaction.org/ram/ilrf06/childslavery06.html It was nice to see The Independent newspaper picked up on this news story with an article on 18 September.
Around the time I heard the Christian Socialist Movement had teamed up with Nestlé a press release arrived from the trade union in the Philippines where Nestlé workers have been on strike for nearly five years because the company refuses to negotiate over retirement benefits despite a Supreme Court ruling that it should do so. So last weekend I interviewed the General Secretary of the union in the Philippines to find out more. You can hear that interview by clicking http://www.babymilkaction.org/press/press20sept06.html
We have a bit of funding specifically to share our experiences of holding corporations to account with other campaigns and giving a voice to those campaigning in developing countries is part of the strategy. But we have to come back to the baby milk issue which is Baby Milk Actions reason for targeting Nestlé with the boycott. While the company is obviously hoping to gain good PR from the meeting at the Labour Party Conference (while avoiding the bad PR of being put on the spot at the meeting in the US) it is an opportunity to raise the boycott and its baby food marketing practices.
Which means today I have been updating our 10 facts leaflet which gives information on Nestlés marketing activities and photocopying and slicing them. It can be downloaded from the resources section of our website http://www.babymilkaction.org/ Also drafting some questions to ask on Monday.
We have a network with thousands of campaign supporters who have signed up to receive information by email (you can do this in the contact section of http://www.babymilkaction.org/ ). In a recent alert people were asked if they could turn out to leaflet in Manchester, where the Conference is being held, so now we have a small team in place who have been sent leaflets. We are still debating in the office who will trek up to Manchester to attend the meeting and raise the questions Nestlé is trying to avoid and if we can find a floor to sleep on to save money.
Also today a media enquiry about the UK situation. We have a UK monitoring project and during World Breastfeeding Week (1-7 August) submitted examples of aggressive marketing to a global snapshot. So I can direct the journalist to the UK website http://www.babyfeedinglawgroup.org.uk/and the global site http://worldbreastfeedingweek.org/monitoringsnapshotresults.htm
Well there is too much to be done, so sometimes it is the deadlines that dictate.
First off was sending a funding proposal to try to obtain a grant. Organisations such as ours usually can expect to receive a few thousand pounds from a charitable trust for a successful application. But there is a lot of competition, which means sending out a lot of proposals. Yesterday we had a directors meeting and looking at the budget we will have to cut back staff hours again from October if some of these dont bite.
Emails are popping into the inbox continuously so I keep an eye on those in case there is anything urgent or quick and easy to answer. So a few exchanges with colleagues in the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) on pressing business. One of our key partners is the International Code Documentation Centre in Penang, Malaysia, which coordinates global monitoring projects, training of legislators and is an all round expert on the marketing requirements.
A boycotter in Belgium wants to know if Nestea is a Nestlé product. It is.
There was a deadline for nominating Nestlé for an award for being an irresponsible company, so that was drafted a few days ago, bounced around the network and submitted today. These awards can be valuable for putting the spotlight on corporate malpractice. Last year Nestlé won a global internet vote for worlds least responsible company by a large margin. The media have picked up on this. A few months back we had a lot of coverage in the press when LOreal was taking over Body Shop. Nestlé owns 28% of LOreal so will profit from people shopping at Body Shop. We conducted a quick survey of boycott supporters through the website and 99% of 500 respondents said they would add Body Shop to their personal boycott. So articles on changes in the cosmetic industry flagged up the boycott, Nestlés baby food marketing malpractice and sometimes quoted Nestlés status as least responsible company. When we have no money for advertising, such publicity is invaluable for keeping the issue in the public eye and the pressure on Nestlé.
Then one of those issues that comes along and disrupts the best laid work plans. Nestlé is due to sponsor a meeting at the Labour Party Conference on Monday. It is being organised by the Christian Socialist Movement and apparently the decision to work with Nestlé was very controversial - quite rightly. It is one thing to share a platform with Nestlé to raise concerns about its business practices - we push for Nestlé to debate with us - but quite another to take its money and then publicise it as sponnsor and speaker at a meeting. Nestlé crops up a meetings like this with reputable organisations and people who see the publicity sometimes assume it means it has changed its unethical behaviour. Even if campaigners can attend the event and put it on the spot from the floor that does not undo the PR (public relations) impact of the event publicity and the fact Nestlé will use its 'partnership' long after the event has passed. So we have to make sure the message gets out that there are still concerns to try to limit the damage.
The controversy in this case has already been picked up by a religious news agency, which included a long quote from me about our disappointment. See Ekklesia
Were concerned because of the event undermining our work on the baby milk issue. But the meeting is about slavery and I know that Nestlé has been taken to court in the US for failing to act over child slavery in its cocoa supply chain. So I contacted the organisers of that campaign and it turned out US Senator Horkins had called a meeting for chocolate companies to explain why they hadnt acted on the Horkins-Engel protocol introduced in 2001 to end child slavery. Campaigners have heard Nestlé and the other companies were refusing to attend the meeting, claiming no-one is available. So no-one from Nestlé is apparently available for a meeting where they will be put on the spot on 18 September, but the Head of Corporate Affairs is going on the 25 September to the fringe meeting at the Labour Party Conference to explain all the wonderful work the company is doing to end forced labour. In a spirit of solidarity with the trafficked and abused children in Ivory Coast I recorded an interview with the International Labour Rights Fund to put on our website, which you can hear by clicking http://www.babymilkaction.org/ram/ilrf06/childslavery06.html It was nice to see The Independent newspaper picked up on this news story with an article on 18 September.
Around the time I heard the Christian Socialist Movement had teamed up with Nestlé a press release arrived from the trade union in the Philippines where Nestlé workers have been on strike for nearly five years because the company refuses to negotiate over retirement benefits despite a Supreme Court ruling that it should do so. So last weekend I interviewed the General Secretary of the union in the Philippines to find out more. You can hear that interview by clicking http://www.babymilkaction.org/press/press20sept06.html
We have a bit of funding specifically to share our experiences of holding corporations to account with other campaigns and giving a voice to those campaigning in developing countries is part of the strategy. But we have to come back to the baby milk issue which is Baby Milk Actions reason for targeting Nestlé with the boycott. While the company is obviously hoping to gain good PR from the meeting at the Labour Party Conference (while avoiding the bad PR of being put on the spot at the meeting in the US) it is an opportunity to raise the boycott and its baby food marketing practices.
Which means today I have been updating our 10 facts leaflet which gives information on Nestlés marketing activities and photocopying and slicing them. It can be downloaded from the resources section of our website http://www.babymilkaction.org/ Also drafting some questions to ask on Monday.
We have a network with thousands of campaign supporters who have signed up to receive information by email (you can do this in the contact section of http://www.babymilkaction.org/ ). In a recent alert people were asked if they could turn out to leaflet in Manchester, where the Conference is being held, so now we have a small team in place who have been sent leaflets. We are still debating in the office who will trek up to Manchester to attend the meeting and raise the questions Nestlé is trying to avoid and if we can find a floor to sleep on to save money.
Also today a media enquiry about the UK situation. We have a UK monitoring project and during World Breastfeeding Week (1-7 August) submitted examples of aggressive marketing to a global snapshot. So I can direct the journalist to the UK website http://www.babyfeedinglawgroup.org.uk/and the global site http://worldbreastfeedingweek.org/monitoringsnapshotresults.htm
Friday, September 22, 2006
Boycott Nestlé - protect infants
It is one of the greatest scandals of our time.
There can be no-one more vulnerable than a new-born child. Without nurture and protection they die. For the first months of life they need breastfeeding and no other food and drink. Breastmilk provides food, adapted to the childs needs as it develops. It also provides protection against infection in the environment. While the childs own immune system is still developing, it receives anti-infective properties in breastmilk produced by its mother. The logical beauty of this never ceases to amaze me: her body produces anti-bodies in response to infections in the environment and some are passed to the child as a tailored medicine to prevent it becoming sick. Other factors are essential for the development of the gut, the nervous system, the whole kit and kaboodle.
Breastfeeding has been described as a continuation of the placenta, passing the necessities for continuing development from mother to child. A child that does not receive human milk is denied the protection and is more likely to become sick and its development will be compromised. Milks from other mammals are just not the same. And so finely developed a system one still not fully understood - cannot be mimicked by even the most sophisticated industrial processes.
Health experts recommend infants are breastfed exclusively (no other foods or liquids, no water, juice or tea) for the first 6 months and then breastfed with other foods into their second year or longer. If that seems a long time there are two important things to remember apart from the health benefits. Firstly, breastfeeding is free and breastmilk is on tap - no bottles to make up in the middle of the night while the baby is crying. Secondly, some breastmilk is better than no breastmilk - but introducing bottles means a mothers own milk supply will be reduced.
Despite the undisputed advantages of breastfeeding, for over a century companies have been hawking their special formulas, claiming they are substitutes for breastmilk. While they are better than nothing and less likely to cause harm than unmodified animal milks, they are still far from the miracle substance that a mother produces for her child. As long as that is understood then formulas can be used appropriately, when necessary, with careful hygienic procedures to reduce the chance of introducing infections which the child is ill-prepared to fight off.
Sadly day in, day out, I see perverted genius at work. People employed by baby food companies dream up marketing campaigns to suggest their formulas are nearly as good as, if not even better, than breastmilk. They are intelligent people and they know 1.5 million infants die around the world every year because they are not breastfed. They are aware of the study in the leading health journal, The Lancet, that calculated breastfeeding could prevent more unnecessary deaths of children under five years of age than provision of safe water, sanitation and vaccination combined. See How many child deaths can we prevent this year? Lancet, Vol 362, July 5, 2003 at http://www.who.int/child-adolescent-health/publications/CHILD_HEALTH/Lancet_CS.htm
Children in the United Kingdom, where I live most of the time (sometimes I live in Brazil my wife is Brazilian), are unlikely to die if they are not breastfed, but they are more likely to end up in hospital because they get sick. They are more likely to have respiratory and ear infections. More likely to develop diabetes, allergies and other long-term illnesses. More likely to be obese. The marketing people at the companies know this well. Yet their advertising and promotion suggests formula protects against infection and provides everything a child needs for healthy development.
Whether to breastfeed or bottle feed is seen by many people as a question of convenience and lifestyle. According to a survey by the UK Department of Health Over a third (34%) of women believe that modern infant formula milks are very similar or the same as breast milk. See Myths stop women giving babies the best start in life at the Department of Health website
If people in a country with the access to education and information we have in the UK believe such myths imagine the challenge for parents in developing countries, where they may only receive information from baby food companies or from health workers who are targeted by baby food companies.
The scandal is that leading baby food companies, household names such as Nestlé and Cow&Gate, set out to mislead mothers and health workers to increase sales of their breastmilk substitutes. Why? To increase profits. You can see their tactics with your own eyes by visiting the Baby Milk Action website see the codewatch section at http://www.babymilkaction.org/
In poor settings, families are making sacrifices to buy formula because they have been persuaded it is somehow better for their child. They may have seen pictures of chubby healthy babies in company materials or believe artificial feeding is the way people feed their children in industrialized, wealthy countries.
Health workers who should know better may have prescribed formula when a mother had a problem with breastfeeding instead of helping the mother solve her breastfeeding problem. It is extremely rare for a mother to be unable to breastfeed if she has support, but without support breastfeeding can be a painful, heartbreaking experience as her child screams for food and she feels her body has failed her. Companies subtly talk up the problems, by, for example, suggesting a mother may not have enough milk or her child may be a hungry baby requiring something extra. With good support mother and baby can work it out so the milk flows freely.
Of course, something must be done to stop this scandal. Thankfully it is.
I am very privileged to work for Baby Milk Action as Campaigns and Networking Coordinator. It is one of the best jobs in the world, and one of the worst. The best because knowing all the above doesnt just makes me angry, it provides me with the information to help design and deliver campaigns to stop the corrupt practices of the baby food companies. It is one of the worst jobs because it brings home what people will do for greed.
Certainly some in the companies are not fully aware of the impact of their actions. Ive worked closely with someone who used to push formula for Nestlé in Pakistan and he didnt realise he was contributing to the unnecessary death and suffering of infants until a doctor explained it to him. He resigned as a result and went on to expose Nestlé practices, including the bribing of doctors. See the website Support Aamir Raza.
The people at the top of the companies are all too aware. They are not only responsible for the marketing campaigns, they invest a fortune in trying to stop people knowing the truth about what happens. I see first hand the lengths they go to to keep this information out of the media. How they try to convince people organisations such as Baby Milk Action are not telling the truth.
The baby food companies are scared. Their market is worth billions of pounds. They are already starting to lose it in some parts of the world. In Brazil, for example, campaigners have been successful in bringing in laws to stop aggressive marketing. The government is actively promoting breastfeeding. Breastfeeding rates are now starting to recover. This means infants are less likely to become sick or die, but it also means fewer sales for the companies. They hate it. In 2003 we had to campaign to stop the law being weakened. Fortunately with the support of people around the world who sent messages to the Brazilian Congress the law was saved.
Our best known campaign is probably the Nestlé boycott. Nestlé is singled out for special attention because evidence shows it is the worst of the baby food companies. We monitor what is happening on the ground with our partners in the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN). You can see monitoring reports on our website.
The boycott is a great campaign. If you want to do something to stop this malpractice, you can. Stop buying Nestlé products. We focus on Nescafé, so if you cant give up the chocolate and cereals concentrate on that. But the more we can hit Nestlé profits the more likely it is to stop its aggressive marketing. Were not asking it to stop selling formula, just to market it responsibly. That means in accordance with marketing requirements adopted by the World Health Assembly, which is a United Nations organisation responsible for setting health policy. It is made up of the health ministries of the worlds governments.
Most important is to write to Nestlé to tell it you will boycott Nescafé (or all its products) until it abides by the World Health Assembly marketing requirements. You can find contact details and a suggested letter in the boycott section of http://www.babymilkaction.org/
If you write to Nestlé you will see how worried it is about the boycott and how much it spends trying to stop it. Nestlé will send you a pile of booklets claiming it is doing nothing wrong. If you check out our website you will find our responses and evidence of what is really happening.
The boycott has been running for a long time. It first began nearly 30 years ago and made this issue known. It led to the World Health Assembly marketing requirements in 1981. Nestlé promised to abide by these in 1984 and the boycott was suspended. But it broke its promise and the boycott was relaunched in 1989.
The boycott keeps the issue in the media. After television programmes on Channel 4 in 1999 (on the Mark Thomas Product) Nestlés Chief Executive promised that labels on formula tins would be in the correct language for the country where they were sold. That had been a requirement since 1981! Nestlé had said it wasn't cost effective to translate labels and it took 18 years of campaigning. There are still some problems with labels, but this was an important victory.
In 2003 we held demonstrations around the country over the course of a week. In the middle of the week Nestlé wrote to us and said it would stop promoting cereal foods for use from too early an age. By promoting them early it was undermining breastfeeding. The World Health Assembly set out the appropriate age of 6 months in 1994. It took 9 years of campaigning and pressure from the boycott to force Nestlé to change, though sometimes we still products or information promoting introduction at 4 months. for example.
Other issues continue, such as providing free samples and supplies which encourage mothers to introduce bottles, which interferes with her own milk supply. Nestlé does a lot of targeting of health workers with misleading information, gifts and promotional material to be given to mothers or put up in hospitals. They target mothers directly with baby clubs. And so on - new tactics keep coming along. So we need to keep up the pressure by spreading news of the boycott.
You can also write to Nestlé and other companies about specific cases. Recently we highlighted how Nestlé was putting health workers into supermarkets in China to target mothers. This was a strategy launched by the Chief Executive of the company. You can write to him saying you know what his company is doing in China and you want him to stop. See the codewatch section of http://www.babymilkaction.org/ You can also sign up to receive email alerts on the website so you are informed when new information is posted.
While I love my work, this is also one of the most depressing jobs because I see how some people are prepared to see infants suffer to put money in their own pockets and then go to desperate lengths to try to cover it up.
At the same time it is one of the best jobs because I see how many people are prepared to take action to stop it. The Nestlé boycott is the best supported consumer action in the UK. Nestlé is on of the four most boycotted companies on the planet. See http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/businessinsight/archives/2005/09/01/branded.html
The boycott has the profile it has because of people like you spreading the word. Baby Milk Action has very little money and just three staff and sometimes we can only work part time if there is not enough money to survive. We dont have the cash for mass advertising campaigns, but we do have thousands and thousands of people spreading the word about the boycott and the wider issues. If this is new to you, please explore our website and I hope you will join the campaign.
Even though this is the best supported consumer action, we can always do more and we must because Nestlé has not made all the changes it should make. Infants are still dying needlessly.
So this is the introduction to my blog. I hope youll come back.
There is far too much work to do at Baby Milk Action, but I hope to make short updates here regularly to explain the latest things that are happening in the campaign. Please tell your friends to drop in.
There can be no-one more vulnerable than a new-born child. Without nurture and protection they die. For the first months of life they need breastfeeding and no other food and drink. Breastmilk provides food, adapted to the childs needs as it develops. It also provides protection against infection in the environment. While the childs own immune system is still developing, it receives anti-infective properties in breastmilk produced by its mother. The logical beauty of this never ceases to amaze me: her body produces anti-bodies in response to infections in the environment and some are passed to the child as a tailored medicine to prevent it becoming sick. Other factors are essential for the development of the gut, the nervous system, the whole kit and kaboodle.
Breastfeeding has been described as a continuation of the placenta, passing the necessities for continuing development from mother to child. A child that does not receive human milk is denied the protection and is more likely to become sick and its development will be compromised. Milks from other mammals are just not the same. And so finely developed a system one still not fully understood - cannot be mimicked by even the most sophisticated industrial processes.
Health experts recommend infants are breastfed exclusively (no other foods or liquids, no water, juice or tea) for the first 6 months and then breastfed with other foods into their second year or longer. If that seems a long time there are two important things to remember apart from the health benefits. Firstly, breastfeeding is free and breastmilk is on tap - no bottles to make up in the middle of the night while the baby is crying. Secondly, some breastmilk is better than no breastmilk - but introducing bottles means a mothers own milk supply will be reduced.
Despite the undisputed advantages of breastfeeding, for over a century companies have been hawking their special formulas, claiming they are substitutes for breastmilk. While they are better than nothing and less likely to cause harm than unmodified animal milks, they are still far from the miracle substance that a mother produces for her child. As long as that is understood then formulas can be used appropriately, when necessary, with careful hygienic procedures to reduce the chance of introducing infections which the child is ill-prepared to fight off.
Sadly day in, day out, I see perverted genius at work. People employed by baby food companies dream up marketing campaigns to suggest their formulas are nearly as good as, if not even better, than breastmilk. They are intelligent people and they know 1.5 million infants die around the world every year because they are not breastfed. They are aware of the study in the leading health journal, The Lancet, that calculated breastfeeding could prevent more unnecessary deaths of children under five years of age than provision of safe water, sanitation and vaccination combined. See How many child deaths can we prevent this year? Lancet, Vol 362, July 5, 2003 at http://www.who.int/child-adolescent-health/publications/CHILD_HEALTH/Lancet_CS.htm
Children in the United Kingdom, where I live most of the time (sometimes I live in Brazil my wife is Brazilian), are unlikely to die if they are not breastfed, but they are more likely to end up in hospital because they get sick. They are more likely to have respiratory and ear infections. More likely to develop diabetes, allergies and other long-term illnesses. More likely to be obese. The marketing people at the companies know this well. Yet their advertising and promotion suggests formula protects against infection and provides everything a child needs for healthy development.
Whether to breastfeed or bottle feed is seen by many people as a question of convenience and lifestyle. According to a survey by the UK Department of Health Over a third (34%) of women believe that modern infant formula milks are very similar or the same as breast milk. See Myths stop women giving babies the best start in life at the Department of Health website
If people in a country with the access to education and information we have in the UK believe such myths imagine the challenge for parents in developing countries, where they may only receive information from baby food companies or from health workers who are targeted by baby food companies.
The scandal is that leading baby food companies, household names such as Nestlé and Cow&Gate, set out to mislead mothers and health workers to increase sales of their breastmilk substitutes. Why? To increase profits. You can see their tactics with your own eyes by visiting the Baby Milk Action website see the codewatch section at http://www.babymilkaction.org/
In poor settings, families are making sacrifices to buy formula because they have been persuaded it is somehow better for their child. They may have seen pictures of chubby healthy babies in company materials or believe artificial feeding is the way people feed their children in industrialized, wealthy countries.
Health workers who should know better may have prescribed formula when a mother had a problem with breastfeeding instead of helping the mother solve her breastfeeding problem. It is extremely rare for a mother to be unable to breastfeed if she has support, but without support breastfeeding can be a painful, heartbreaking experience as her child screams for food and she feels her body has failed her. Companies subtly talk up the problems, by, for example, suggesting a mother may not have enough milk or her child may be a hungry baby requiring something extra. With good support mother and baby can work it out so the milk flows freely.
Of course, something must be done to stop this scandal. Thankfully it is.
I am very privileged to work for Baby Milk Action as Campaigns and Networking Coordinator. It is one of the best jobs in the world, and one of the worst. The best because knowing all the above doesnt just makes me angry, it provides me with the information to help design and deliver campaigns to stop the corrupt practices of the baby food companies. It is one of the worst jobs because it brings home what people will do for greed.
Certainly some in the companies are not fully aware of the impact of their actions. Ive worked closely with someone who used to push formula for Nestlé in Pakistan and he didnt realise he was contributing to the unnecessary death and suffering of infants until a doctor explained it to him. He resigned as a result and went on to expose Nestlé practices, including the bribing of doctors. See the website Support Aamir Raza.
The people at the top of the companies are all too aware. They are not only responsible for the marketing campaigns, they invest a fortune in trying to stop people knowing the truth about what happens. I see first hand the lengths they go to to keep this information out of the media. How they try to convince people organisations such as Baby Milk Action are not telling the truth.
The baby food companies are scared. Their market is worth billions of pounds. They are already starting to lose it in some parts of the world. In Brazil, for example, campaigners have been successful in bringing in laws to stop aggressive marketing. The government is actively promoting breastfeeding. Breastfeeding rates are now starting to recover. This means infants are less likely to become sick or die, but it also means fewer sales for the companies. They hate it. In 2003 we had to campaign to stop the law being weakened. Fortunately with the support of people around the world who sent messages to the Brazilian Congress the law was saved.
Our best known campaign is probably the Nestlé boycott. Nestlé is singled out for special attention because evidence shows it is the worst of the baby food companies. We monitor what is happening on the ground with our partners in the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN). You can see monitoring reports on our website.
The boycott is a great campaign. If you want to do something to stop this malpractice, you can. Stop buying Nestlé products. We focus on Nescafé, so if you cant give up the chocolate and cereals concentrate on that. But the more we can hit Nestlé profits the more likely it is to stop its aggressive marketing. Were not asking it to stop selling formula, just to market it responsibly. That means in accordance with marketing requirements adopted by the World Health Assembly, which is a United Nations organisation responsible for setting health policy. It is made up of the health ministries of the worlds governments.
Most important is to write to Nestlé to tell it you will boycott Nescafé (or all its products) until it abides by the World Health Assembly marketing requirements. You can find contact details and a suggested letter in the boycott section of http://www.babymilkaction.org/
If you write to Nestlé you will see how worried it is about the boycott and how much it spends trying to stop it. Nestlé will send you a pile of booklets claiming it is doing nothing wrong. If you check out our website you will find our responses and evidence of what is really happening.
The boycott has been running for a long time. It first began nearly 30 years ago and made this issue known. It led to the World Health Assembly marketing requirements in 1981. Nestlé promised to abide by these in 1984 and the boycott was suspended. But it broke its promise and the boycott was relaunched in 1989.
The boycott keeps the issue in the media. After television programmes on Channel 4 in 1999 (on the Mark Thomas Product) Nestlés Chief Executive promised that labels on formula tins would be in the correct language for the country where they were sold. That had been a requirement since 1981! Nestlé had said it wasn't cost effective to translate labels and it took 18 years of campaigning. There are still some problems with labels, but this was an important victory.
In 2003 we held demonstrations around the country over the course of a week. In the middle of the week Nestlé wrote to us and said it would stop promoting cereal foods for use from too early an age. By promoting them early it was undermining breastfeeding. The World Health Assembly set out the appropriate age of 6 months in 1994. It took 9 years of campaigning and pressure from the boycott to force Nestlé to change, though sometimes we still products or information promoting introduction at 4 months. for example.
Other issues continue, such as providing free samples and supplies which encourage mothers to introduce bottles, which interferes with her own milk supply. Nestlé does a lot of targeting of health workers with misleading information, gifts and promotional material to be given to mothers or put up in hospitals. They target mothers directly with baby clubs. And so on - new tactics keep coming along. So we need to keep up the pressure by spreading news of the boycott.
You can also write to Nestlé and other companies about specific cases. Recently we highlighted how Nestlé was putting health workers into supermarkets in China to target mothers. This was a strategy launched by the Chief Executive of the company. You can write to him saying you know what his company is doing in China and you want him to stop. See the codewatch section of http://www.babymilkaction.org/ You can also sign up to receive email alerts on the website so you are informed when new information is posted.
While I love my work, this is also one of the most depressing jobs because I see how some people are prepared to see infants suffer to put money in their own pockets and then go to desperate lengths to try to cover it up.
At the same time it is one of the best jobs because I see how many people are prepared to take action to stop it. The Nestlé boycott is the best supported consumer action in the UK. Nestlé is on of the four most boycotted companies on the planet. See http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/businessinsight/archives/2005/09/01/branded.html
The boycott has the profile it has because of people like you spreading the word. Baby Milk Action has very little money and just three staff and sometimes we can only work part time if there is not enough money to survive. We dont have the cash for mass advertising campaigns, but we do have thousands and thousands of people spreading the word about the boycott and the wider issues. If this is new to you, please explore our website and I hope you will join the campaign.
Even though this is the best supported consumer action, we can always do more and we must because Nestlé has not made all the changes it should make. Infants are still dying needlessly.
So this is the introduction to my blog. I hope youll come back.
There is far too much work to do at Baby Milk Action, but I hope to make short updates here regularly to explain the latest things that are happening in the campaign. Please tell your friends to drop in.
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