greed
I’m writing to show you how the cycle reinforces itself. Every slave child in Asia works longer than the average worker in the West, but gets paid between US$0.01, and US$0.05 per day (not sure if or how much children in sub-Saharan Africa get paid). With this, they buy enough food to barely survive, and force themselves to live longer. When the money is finished, they could only want more, so what do they do? They go back to work. This is how the Capitalist cycle reinforces itself; the employees are kept poor so that they’re forced to return, to work, for more money. This is common in the West, where the working class isn’t paid too much, to ensure they still have “a reason to work.”
They’re paid enough to survive, and that’s it, but what happens with children, that is so different? The children are from age 8, to probably 17. They do cross puberty, and they go through the hormonal raging, and with no guidance, they end up seeking the slightest bit of love from each other; young children get children. So more children are born, and their parents, who are still children, can’t afford to send them to school. They’re uneducated, and not expected to get a good job, even when they reach the decent age, so they join their parents in the shoe factories to help to keep the family alive, or they end up stealing, just to have a little more food to keep them alive for another few days. Who gets the blame? Should they give up, and die? People would say that’s pathetic and weak, but stealing just to survive, in a life that they never chose, in the first place? They’re probably punished for that too, so they live double-wrong lives, and they do realize it, which is why some end up as prostitutes, doing anything for a little money (both boys & girls). Is this the world we want?
And again… The cycle reinforces itself, because the children have more children, and they can’t afford to send them to school, so they end up in the same factories, to the benefit of the fat capitalist cats.
What do you do to stop it? When you buy brands like Nike, GAP, Wal-Mart, McDonald’s (happy meal toys), and Banana Republic, you support their involvement in child labour. You contribute to the demands for their products, and they try to maintain a good supply, so they continue the enslavement; if you don’t buy from them at all, you’re slowing business for them. Don’t say “Oh, they made it already, so it’s not like leaving it there will prevent the fact that a child made it.” Things like that make no sense in the business world! When you buy the child(slave)-made products, you’re encouraging the company to get more made! So stop supporting their businesses. If something is made out of a khaki-coloured denim, it’s likely made by a juvenile sweatshop in India, so if you support khaki school uniforms, you support the abuse of Indian children! Many adults are unemployed… Why can’t we send them to do those jobs for a fair salary instead? The kids work harder, considering they’re less physically fit to do certain jobs, yet they’re paid less. Is that right?
