About Amnesty Shop
About Amnesty Trading: Amnesty International United Kingdom has teamed up with New Internationalist Publications to bring you amnestyshop.org.uk. Income from sales goes to support Amnesty’s work while the majority of items are also either organic, fairly traded, educational or eco-friendly (see Ethical Buying Policy below). New Internationalist is responsible for producing or buying all of the items sold on this site. When you buy you will not only be supporting Amnesty, but also various other good causes from around the globe.
About Amnesty International: We are ordinary people from across the world standing up for humanity and human rights. Our purpose is to protect individuals wherever justice, fairness, freedom and truth are denied. For more information visit Amnesty's website.
About New Internationalist Publications: New Internationalist is an independent not-for-profit small publisher owned by a trust. It was started with the help of OXFAM and Christian Aid in 1973. Today it produces a monthly magazine and other publications which report on the issues of world poverty and inequality; focusing attention on the unjust relationship between the powerful and the powerless worldwide. For more information on New Internationalist visit their web site.
Ethical Buying Policy
On this site is a unique and fascinating range of gifts, the sale of which, in addition to providing income for Amnesty, will also support the Protect the Human campaign in a variety of ways. For example, some gifts protect the environment by being made from organic or recycled materials, whilst others are purchased from small Fair Trade producers. We indicate the nature of the item by using ''PRODUCT KEYS'' such as 'educational', 'organic', 'fairtrade', 'recycled' etc... and you can click on the ''PRODUCT KEYS'' to search items using this criteria.
Fair Trade
What is Fair Trade? Well as anyone who has read the No Nonsense Guide to Fair Trade will know, it’s a difficult question to answer. The official position is that there are two major internationally accepted fair trade organisations. Members of the World Fair Trade Organisation (formerly IFAT) have demonstrated that they have a 100% commitment to Fair Trade in all their business activities. These organisations carry the WFTO logo and generally police international fair trade. One of their members is the British Association of Fair Trade Shops (BAFTS) who produce a list of those UK organisations which it regards as being fair trade importers. A sister organisation to WFTO is the Fairtrade Labelling Organisation (FLO) which registers particular products to carry the well known fair trade symbol; in UK this is done through the Fairtrade Foundation. Many of our suppliers are registered with these organisations but we don’t insist; some can’t afford it, some are just starting out, some are too small, and some just don’t want to. Then we have a supplier like One Village, one of the founders of BAFTS, who say: ‘The relationship between the status of producer and buyer is seldom that of equality. How therefore can this ever be described as fair? Trade generally increases inequality because its process automatically accumulates capital into fewer hands. Workers are often prepared to accept low rates of pay only because the alternative might be no income at all.’ (You can read more at www.onevillage.org/fairtrade.htm). So, one of our most ethical suppliers declines to label themselves as a ‘fair trade’ organisation.
Our approach is to meet all our suppliers, to talk to them and check what they are doing. We buy very few products at source, preferring to work with importers who have direct links with their suppliers. We establish that our suppliers know who makes their products, and the conditions in which they are made. In nearly all cases we talk directly to people who have visited where the products are made. We don’t always insist that the products are made by a community association; some are made in small family businesses, especially when our supplier is just working in a single village. Having satisfied ourselves that our purchase will bring real benefit to the community where the items are made we term the products ‘fair trade’.Then, as an insurance, we insist that all suppliers are listed on this website. You can find the list by clicking on "Brands" in the Quick menu at the bottom of this page. If anyone was ever to query the ethics of one of our suppliers we would then vigorously pursue the allegation.