Sweatshops

708 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The negative effects of child labor

When you think about children, chances are you think of them getting up in the morning, going to school then coming home and going outside to play. Sadly this isn't always the case. In other countries, children are locked up inside being forced to work. Is it fair that a child is forced to work a twelve-hour shift, seven days a week earning only seven cents an hour? This means if a child were to work eighty-four hours a week (when the maximum is 60 hours a week), then they will have only earned $5.55. Sometimes they have to work overtime which they aren’t paid for. If a worker cannot stay for the overtime, they are suspended without pay or they are fired. The workers want Unions, but the companies forbid them!
Living on these salaries is almost impossible. A round trip bus to work costs 0.37cents, and just enough food to get by for a day is about $1.33. That means each person could spend $ 2.59 per day. The majority of the people are spending more than they make, so a lot of them go hungry. That total doesn’t include rent, which is usually 0.86 a day for a one room apartment. If the worker pays the rent, there is nothing left over, in fact, they are in debt. What about food for the family, utilities, clothes, doctor's bills, medicines, or even to think about going to school? Because of the great cost of living for these people the whole family is forced to work.
An estimated two hundred and fifty million children ages six to fourteen work for pennies a day so that their families have food to eat and a place to live. One half of these children work full-time. 85% of these children come from Asia and Africa. These children don’t want to be working, but their parents normally force them to. Because of this, the children miss out on the opportunity to be educated. Remember, children are the future> And with millions of them locked up, never learning how to read or write, or even simple math skills, what kind of future do we have? Most of these children work because of poverty. If your income is high you will probably be picked to attend school, in other words if you have money than you can go to school. Some children work because the schools are too overcrowded for them to attend.

Show More
Related

  • the trounle with sweatshops

    795 Words  | 2 Pages

    The controversial issue of sweatshops is one often over looked by The United States. In the Social Issues Encyclopedia, entry # 167, Matt Zwolinski tackles the issues of sweatshops. In this article Matt raises a question I have not been able to get out of my head since I have begun researching this topic, “ are companies who contract with sweatshops doing anything wrong?” this article goes on to argue that the people who work in the sweatshops willingly choose to work there, despite the poor environment. Many people in third world countries depend on the sweatshops to earn what they can to have any hopes of surviving. If the sweatshops were to shut down many people would lose their jobs, and therefore have no source of income. This may lead people to steal and prostitution as well. this article is suggesting that sweatshops will better the economy by giving people a better job than what they may have had. Due to this the companies contracting with sweatshops are not acting wrong in any way. This was a deductive article it had a lot of good examples to show how sweatshops are beneficial to third world countries. Radly Balko seemed to have the same view point as Matt Zwolinski. Many people believe the richer countries should not support the sweatshops Balko believes if people stopped buying products made in sweatshops the companies will have to shut down and relocate, firing all of the present workers. Rasing the fact that again the worker will have no source of income, the workers need the sweatshop to survive. Balko also uses the argument that the workers willingly work in the current environments.

    Read More

  • Sacrifice In Enrique's Journey By Sonia Nazario

    1027 Words  | 3 Pages

    Without an education Americans are unable to fully prosper and compete with the competitive career pathways, which is the same for any country. In order to grow and expand an individual needs the education and knowledge of the area of expertise they wish to achieve. However, in poorer countries the availability and opportunities to fulfill an education is far slimmer than in the United States. In fact such low education levels have contributed to the issue of child labor, an increasing epidemic in Honduras. Due to “rapid population growth and limited school budgets […] the school day in Honduras has been cut to half a day” (Groves 172). This downsizing has left children with the ability to work for the rest of the day. However once they begin work most tend to quit school believing that it is not worth investing in their education, since working alone provides them with the necessary valuable skills (Groves 172). This perception has led to “between 69 and 75 percent of children working in construction, agriculture, and the service sector” no longer attending school (Groves 172). However this believed perception is far from the truth. From the blue-collar

    Read More

  • Sweatshops In The 1800s

    907 Words  | 2 Pages

    Look down at the clothes you're wearing right now, chances are almost every single thing you are currently wearing was made in a sweatshop. It is estimated that between 50-75% of all garments are made under sweatshop like conditions. Designers and companies get 2nd party contractors to hire people to work in these factories, this is a tool to make them not responsible for the horrendous conditions. They get away with it by saying they are providing jobs for people in 3rd world countries so its okay, but in reality they are making their lives even worse. These companies and designers only care about their bank accounts so if they can exploit poor, young people from poverty stricken countries they surely will, and they do. A sweatshop is a factory

    Read More

  • Taking a Closer Look at Sweatshops

    550 Words  | 2 Pages

    Scholarly intrigue and a hunger for knowledge led Kelsey Timmerman to write the book "Where Am I Wearing". "Where Am I Wearing" is a compilation of both Timmerman's thought-provoking questions: questions about wear the clothes we wear come from, about who makes our clothes, about the working conditions of the people who make our clothes, and the stories that he gathered during the many journeys that he went on while writing the book. Through his tales of travel Timmerman introduces his readers to the harsh realities of globalization, poverty, child labor, and sweatshops.

    Read More

  • Third World Sweatshops

    1409 Words  | 3 Pages

    Large corporations such as Nike, Gap, and Reebok and many others from the United States have moved their factories to undeveloped nations; barely pay their employees enough to live on. Countries such as China, Indonesia, and Haiti have readily abundant cheap labor. There should be labor laws or an obligation of respecting workers to provide decent working conditions, fair wages, and safety standards.

    Read More

  • Against Sweatshops

    1140 Words  | 3 Pages

    Some companies have acceded to public pressure to reduce or end their use of sweatshops. Such firms often publicize the fact that their products are not made with Anti-globalization activists and environmentalists also deplore transfer of heavy industrial manufacturing (such as chemical production) to the developing world. Although chemical factories have little in common with sweatshops in the original sense, detractors describe them as such and claim that there are negative environmental and health impacts (such as pollution and birth defects, respectively) on workers and the local community.

    Read More

  • It's Time to Lower the Working Age to 13

    609 Words  | 2 Pages

    Jobs won’t only support teens for the things they want, but it can help benefit for the things they need. The first things teens think of for their future are going to college and getting their first car. But, let’s say there’s a well educated thirteen-year-old, raised in a low-income family, who has plans on going to college. There’s no way their family can support him to go to college, and its funds could be over-whelming. The only way they could go to college is if they started saving at an early age. Therefore, if they got a job at the age they were at now, they’d be on their way to college by the time they graduate high school. Or, another example would be, if a teen wanted to get their first car on their sixteenth birthday. As you may know, many teens don’t get things handed to them on a silver platter, so they’d have to buy that car themselves. They might be old enough to drive, but they just turned the legal working age. Once they get a job, they’d have to wait at least a year to have enough money for the car as well as its insurance.

    Read More

  • Sweat Shops

    522 Words  | 2 Pages

    The lives of people in some third world countries such as Honduras and Indonesia are completely different than ours hear in a much more prosperous nation. So when citizens of this great nation hear about people working for thirty to fifty cents an hour they think it’s absolutely absurd. But what they don’t realize is that this amount of profit is acceptable to these people. David R. Henderson backs this up by stating, “Take the 31 cents an hour some 13-year-old Honduran girls allegedly earn at 70-hour-a-week jobs. Assuming a 50-week year, that works out to over $1,000 a year. This sounds absurdly low to Americans but when you consider that Honduras’s GDP per person in 1994 was the equivalent of about $600.” You can also see proof of this in Cathy Young’s article when she writes, “I have also wondered why, when we are shocked by reports of 50-cent-an-hour wages, we never think of those Save the Children ads reminding us that a contribution of $15 can feed and clothe a Third World child for a whole month.” Also, Young brings up another good point by stressing the fact that to many Third World country families having children is one more financial burden, “…in poor societies, a family cannot afford to support a child for 18 years. For virtually all of human history, most children worked…”

    Read More

  • Issues Of Sweatshops

    1297 Words  | 3 Pages

    The lack of ethics concerning global issues can be found in the sweatshops of underdeveloped and third world countries. This issue has developed from the indiscretion of industries and employers. Industries treat their employees poorly; moreover, employees are subjected to extremely poor working conditions, poverty wages, and little to no benefits or union representation. The competition of industries has created these oppressive practices. According to research done by Jay Mandle at Cambridge, in countries such as Bangladesh, sweatshop workers are paid only 13 cents per hour in US money. These workers are subjected to extremely overpopulated sweatshops, being that an astounding 3.5 million workers make up the workforce of 4,825

    Read More

  • Sweatshops

    1059 Words  | 3 Pages

    Sweatshop workers are without a doubt some of the most overworked and underpaid employees. With inhumane, unhygienic work areas and demanding, cruel employers, it is tantamount to modern day slavery. Unfortunately, most of these sweatshops are either located in developing countries or generally impoverished areas in the U.S., where there are not many opportunities for jobs with decent wages. This forces many people (children included) to take on these undesirable jobs in order to provide for their families. Though there are anti-sweatshop organizations dedicated to opposing and halting the usage of maltreated labor, there are too many giant and well-established corporations

    Read More

  • Women's Rights Dbq Essay

    901 Words  | 2 Pages

    The problems is that children are facing harsh condition that may harm their health from the long 8 hour of work, while only earning 10 cents per day (Doc 7). Child Labor is a problem that will become a danger to children life. It evidently is unfair that a child only earn 10 cents for the amount of labor they put to get money. Children are too young and immature to handle tough labor, they should be educated to succeed. However, for the children in labor, they are facing long-term health problems from dust and debris in mine or factory that may shorten their lifespan (O.I). If the problem were to continue, it would affect the population of US led to development of child labor

    Read More

  • The American Dream And Poverty

    1468 Words  | 3 Pages

    Students in poverty tend to obtain low grades, have little academic achievement, and often misbehave. Many often drop out before graduating high school. Students ages sixteen through twenty-four are up to seven times more likely to drop out. A study published in Nature Neuroscience discovered “a link between physical brain development and poverty level. In a study of eleven hundred children, adolescence and adults from around the US, researchers found significant differences in the brains of children from the lowest income bracket in comparison to those in the highest. Families who lived on less than twenty-five thousand dollars a year had as much as 6% less surface area in their brain in areas like language and decision making than families who made more than one hundred and fifty dollars a year.” This may support why many students in poverty tend to do worse in school over middle class students. Employers usually lean toward more educated workers, leaving the poor at a serious disadvantage when it comes to work Children growing in poverty regularly have families of their own poverty. Some workplaces, manufacturing jobs have replaced their human labor with machinery and technology, which leaves many potential jobs out of the hands of people hungry for work. Having a weak education leaves them unskilled, resulting poor and low paying occupations. This creates a long lasting loop of poverty, a loop which is hard to escape. They

    Read More

  • Challenges Hindering Education in Underdeveloped Countries

    1728 Words  | 4 Pages

    In underdeveloped countries there are a number of reasons why children don’t stay in school and not only because of family income. In underdeveloped countries hardships children have to face that don’t allow them to be successful in the pursuit of their education range from difficulties of getting to school, to paying tutoring for additional support to pass test’s to well as the actual cost of the schooling necessary. Even when the tuition of the education these children in underdeveloped countries receive is free, other expenses do get in the way. Other expenses would be things such as expenses for the child’s lunch, as well as their uniforms and even examination fees. Not only are these the issues children face in underdeveloped countries but they also face having to leave school to provide income for their families even if they really do want to continue their education. Why would they do such a thing? Children often fail to develop basic literacy and numeracy because their parents actually take them out of school so they can work and be able to provide income for their family households. So i believe that it’s safe to say that in

    Read More

  • Child Labor In El Salvador

    556 Words  | 2 Pages

    Here’s an example of child labor in El Salvador. A boy named Alberto works every day at four am to six pm at corn and coffee farms. Alberto is providing money for his large family. Alberto doesn't get an education

    Read More

  • Educational Inequality

    1207 Words  | 3 Pages

    Many people believe that “having an economy that places a greater value on skills and education is a good thing” and that is the thing that is needed to improve people’s lives and futures (Baicker, Lazear). If what our economy is trying to do a good thing they why are so many students still suffering? The main issues are the low-income education that many students have. Many schools are getting money from the government but that is not enough to pay for everything students need. Educational standards have continued to increase throughout the years but that does not help the students who are unable to pay for the better education. These students who cannot pay for the better education are stuck barely getting by with a low education. A low-education can affect many areas of regular schooling. The students who are at low-income schools do not know what type of disadvantage they have compared to other students across the country. These students believe that they are getting the best education, but there are many students who are getting a better education at a school that has the funds to pay for everything their students need. Low-income students are suffering due to the environment they are in at school and they continue to suffer throughout their life due to it. These students will continue to suffer unless something is done about the low-income schools and improve them for the future. Improvement has to come from all areas, not just one aspect of schooling but from all aspects. Although education has improved along with technology many low-income students still suffer from the vast inequalities. These inequalities will take many years to find a way to fix and even more years to actually fix, until this happens the students will...

    Read More

More about Sweatshops

Open Document