Child Labor In Sweatshops

A woman in Wales bought a dress and was looking at the dress label for washing instructions when she noticed a note. The note was written on the back of the dress label, it read, “Forced to work exhausting hours.” The dress the woman thought was pretty, soon became disturbingly ugly. This was the first tangible cry for help through labels on clothing. This cry goes to show that American consumers buy clothes with little to no knowledge of how it is made or who it is made by. If American shoppers only knew that over 168 million children are making their clothes and other products in factories and clothing sweatshops, would they still buy the clothes? According to the U.S. Department of Labor, sweatshops are defined as factories that violate
companies claim they know nothing about the evidence that reveals their products are made by child laborers in sweatshops. Factory bosses threaten children who are ages 14 and younger to lie about their ages and say they are malnourished adults. When buyers from the companies go to inspect the plants and how their clothes are made, they are lied to by the plant managers. For instance, at Harvest Rich plant in Bangladesh, managers told Tesco buyers that many of their workers come from rural areas in which poverty and malnutrition is very common, therefore “age cannot be specified by eye examination.” The labor laws pertaining to the certain ages children are allowed to work, 15 years old or older, are greatly violated, overlooked and unregulated. Contractors from the U.S. companies do nothing to prove the ages of the factory workers and continue to allow sweatshops to exist and follow their own practices. Factories supply for international clothing brands through subcontracts, a contract for a company to do work for another company. These contracts make it difficult for clothing brand companies to know how and where their clothes are made. In fact, according to Institute for Global Labor and Human Rights, Gap uses 2,700 contractors worldwide. In 2007, however, Gap tried to save money by having their contractors subcontract work to sweatshops in developing countries like India. Because of subcontracts, Gap lost control and could no longer monitor where their
The solution is Fairtrade. In order to reduce the amount of child laborers in clothing sweatshops, American consumers should purchase Fairtrade clothes and other imported products such as coffee, chocolate and bananas. Producers who are Fairtrade Certified must follow set standards that apply to child labor and human rights made by Fairtrade International. These set standards include prohibition of children under age of 15 can by working for the producer’s business and children who are fifteen and older cannot take part in work that interferes with school or their health. According to Fairtrade International, there are over 1,210 Fairtrade certified producer organizations in 74 different countries. This growing number is significant because among these producers, child labor, hazardous working conditions and unfair wages and hours cease to exist. Also, when American consumers buy Fairtrade products, farmers and producers receive set premiums which are then used to help their local communities. Premiums are used to build schools and other programs for the children. Likewise, Fairtrade staff members come to the communities of their certified producers to form relationships with the children. They learn about the children’s future aspirations in order to create programs that increase their quality of life. By improving the quality of life and wellbeing of the children, children can help combat