Child labour, poverty and terrible working conditions lie behind the sugar you eat.
Dominican Republic: Modern Day Sugarcane Slavery On the Caribbean island of the Dominican Republic, tourists flock to pristine beaches, with little knowledge that a few miles away thousands of dispossessed Haitians are under armed guard on plantations harvesting sugarcane. Cutting cane by machete, they work 14 hour days, 7 days a week, frequently without access to decent housing, electricity, clean water, education, healthcare or adequate nutrition. The Price of Sugar (90 mins, narrated by Paul Newman, 2007, 1 hr 29 mins) follows a charismatic Anglo-Spanish priest, Father Christopher Hartley, as he organizes some of this hemisphere’s poorest people, challenging the powerful interests profiting from their work. |
This film raises key questions about where the products we consume originate, at what human cost they are produced and ultimately, where our responsibility lies.