Child Labor in Mexico

3748 Words8 Pages

Child Labor in Mexico

Veronica Hernandez began her working career in a factory sweatshop. She was only 8 years old. After more than 12 years of intense and monotonous work in a number of different factories, Hernandez still, “felt as poor as the day she first climbed onto the lower rungs of the global assembly line” (Ferriss, source#2). Veronica works about 45 hours a week for only a base salary of $55, an occupation where she assembles RCA televisions by the Thomson Corporation. While some people you know complain of not having cable or enough channels for their big screen television, Veronica is blessed that she even owns one. She lives in a one room hut that includes no more than an out-house and an old refrigerator. She has to haul water from a single faucet that services a group of other families as well as her own. Hoping that some development would come (either in working conditions or wage) since the beginning of her working career as a child, Hernandez knows that progress hasn’t developed within the last couple of years. While she continues to slave in ‘maquiladoras’ (U.S. and other foreign-owned factories that assemble products for consumers), people around the globe are searching to find alternate ways to create work. The need for improvement in working conditions and withholding laws to keep young children out of factory work is urgent. Child labor is a serious issue that needs the world’s attention now more than ever.

Child labor has become an ongoing global concern for many years. The practice sweatshops in places such as South America and Asia are responsible for much of the manufactured goods people own today. While hundreds of organized unions and corporations look for answers to this unheal...

... middle of paper ...

... 29 Oct. 2003.

Global march on Five Continents Target Child Labor. Labor Alerts-a Service of “Campaign for Labor Rights.” Washington, 2003.

Greenhouse, Steven. “Nike Identified Plants Abroad Making goods for Universities” New York Times. 8 Oct. 1999.

Homepage. www.Crea-inc.org/pr01.htm

Homepage. www.gobalexhange.org/sweatshops/gap/background.html

Homepage. http://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/relm/ilc/index.htm

Homepage. www.natlaw.com/pubs/torrient.htm

Homepage. www.usinfo.state.gov/journals/ites/1002/igee/ftaa-derbex.htm

Homepage. www.sweatshops.org.

“How NAFTA Failed Mexico” The American Prospect. July-Aug. 2003. 14.

Latapi, Agustin and Mercedes Gonzalez. Crisis, Restructuring and Urban Poverty in Mexico.

Logan, Marty. Trade Americas: FTAA Environmental Outlook Break, experts say. 14 Oct.

2003.

Open Document