Labour rights campaigners will take some of the romance out of Valentine’s Day on Thursday by warning lovers that their traditional gifts of flowers and chocolates are often bought at an intolerable cost to those who produce them.
At a briefing hosted by the United Nations, they plan to highlight the suffering of farm labourers in Africa and Latin America, some of whom work in near slave conditions to supply goods to a predominantly western market.
“Valentine’s Day gifts are about caring and it is important that the companies that supply chocolates and cut flowers know that their customers also care about the workers who are at the end of the supply chain,” said Stephen Pursey, director of policy integration at the International Labour Organization, which has a speaker at Thursday’s session in New York...