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7 things your church can do


1. Become an Abolitionist Church

Download ‘Abolish Slavery! A Handbook for Churches’ (PDF: 1.2 MB) and follow the step by step plan to become an Abolitionist church. This hand book contains background information about slavery today, actions, bible studies, prayers, financial responses and links to additional resources.


2. Sign the Declaration of Abolitionist Churches

Sign the Declaration of Abolitionist Churches by filling in the Abolitionist Church registration form on the Don’t Trade Lives website. Your declarations will be compiled with other churches and listed on an online register.


3. Plan a five minute ‘eye-opener’ during your worship service highlighting the issue of child labour in chocolate.

If Christians have eyes to see and ears to hear they can respond to the big challenge of slavery in the modern world. Chocolate is something most people like and all can recognise as a common Australian luxury. To discover that the chocolate we eat can involve child slavery (PDF: 85 KB) in its production can be a real eye-opener.

Use the Don’t Trade Lives Fact Sheet (PDF: 422 KB), stories from the Understanding Slavery section of ‘Abolish Slavery! A Handbook for Churches’ (PDF: 1.2 MB), or the Bubbles of Nothing video clip to grab the attention of your congregation.


4. Preach on the gospel for the whole of life and for action to end slavery.

In the 19th century, many Christians in England saw the gospel as involving social and economic as well as spiritual redemption. Consequently they were compelled to act and successfully fought for legislation to abolish slavery. The prevalence of slavery today raises issues for modern Christians about how we understand the gospel and its implications.

In his resource paper Slavery introduced (PDF: 151 KB), Reverend Dr Kevin Giles presents comprehensive background information about slavery in the modern world, in the Bible, and attitudes by Christians through church history to the present day. This resource was produced by the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne and is available in conjunction with other resources from the Anglican Church in Melbourne website.


5. Include prayers in your worship service (PDF: 87 KB) for action to end slavery.


6. Establish an information and action stand about chocolate

where after the service people can obtain facts sheets (PDF: 422 KB) about child slavery and cocoa production and sign a letter (PDF: 71 KB) urging action by chocolate manufacturers to end child labour in cocoa production. Source some Fair Trade chocolate (PDF: 172 KB) from a local retailer and have it available for purchase (or better yet give away free samples).

The more people who are mobilised to express concern about how cocoa beans are produced, the more likely it is that chocolate manufacturers will take action to eliminate the worst forms of child labour in cocoa production.


7. Sign the Just say ‘Yes’ petition to the chocolate industry

Send a message to the Australian chocolate industry that you want them to make a genuine attempt to tackle the root causes of child labour in cocoa production. World Vision has set out a list development recommendations which it is calling on industry to meet.

In brief, these initiatives are:

Address the issue of fair pricing for cocoa farmers

  • Support community management of local development to promote community wellbeing
  • Invest in improved community services
  • Ensure sustainable cocoa production and farming practices
  • Ensure that all Australian chocolate manufacturers who are CMA members participate in ethical certification schemes.

You can view the detailed initiatives here.

There are a number of ways your church community can ‘sign the petition’.