Waipara Valley viticulturists Pete (pictured) and Alanna Chapman have established a wine label where all its proceeds are sent to Hagar, an international organisation working to stop human trafficking and slavery. Photo: RNZ / Cosmo Kentish-Barnes
A Canterbury wine label has reached its goal of donating $50,000 towards stopping global slavery by the end of the year.
27seconds reached its goal by the end of the year, meaning the social enterprise's donations would total about $200,000 since it was established five years ago.
Co-founded by Alanna and Pete Chapman, the name comes from a UNICEF estimate that 1.2 million children are sold into slavery every year.
"When you break those statistics down it works out to be one every 27 seconds," Alanna Chapman said.
All the proceeds from wine sales are sent to Hagar, an international organisation working to stop human trafficking and slavery.
For the first two years, the couple used the excess grapes from Pete's family vineyard, Terrace Edge, but the label now needs to contract growers.
"[2016] was this amazing summer where the sun just shone every single day and the vineyard was just heaving with grapes," Alanna Chapman said.
"Pete came home one day and he's like, 'Hey, we've got far too much riesling - what about if we do like a one-off fundraiser wine?'
"We quickly thought, 'Well, you can't just have riesling - let's add pinot noir into the mix as well,' and then we thought, 'Oh no, you can't just have those two…' It sort of snowballed from there."
The cause was inspired by a trip to India, where the couple encountered teenagers who had been trafficked from Nepal and sold into prostitution.
In April the government released a series of proposals to end modern slavery and worker exploitation, but it could be hard for individuals to know what to do, Alanna Chapman said.
"When you learn about such a big problem like that but you don't have a concrete way that you can actually help, it leads to apathy.
"For us having a product that you can buy where the proceeds go towards helping organisations in this area, it's like, a thing that people actually can do. So it does two things - it's putting the issue on the table per se, and also providing people a way that they can help."
And with recent estimates indicating about 50m people are caught in slavery, up from 40.2m in 2016, she said New Zealand should be doing more.
"Slavery is a very complex problem, it's not black and white and it's going to take all facets of society working together. I think one of the biggest things is actually just awareness, awareness that slavery is alive and true today.
"I think for most New Zealanders, and this would've been myself as well, we kind of think back to the African slave trade several centuries ago and that's what stays in our mind as slavery, but there are more people in slavery today than ever before."