Every year on Valentine's Day, millions of Americans head to their local florist or supermarket to buy flowers for a friend or family member. Most are mainly concerned about getting the flowers to the recipient on time. Yet few ever ask where the flowers come from or who helped grow and pick them.

I never thought much about the human beings behind the bouquets either -- until I traveled to Colombia last year and talked with a group of "floriculture" workers in a village near Bogota. I learned that our domestic expressions of affection -- which reach their largest volume on Valentine's Day and Mothers' Day -- require painful, low-paid labor by a global workforce that's largely female... 

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