By: Chimedum O.
Consider for a moment the cost of the average song on iTunes: anywhere from $0.69 to a $1.29.Now imagine a salary of around that – say, $1.14 – split seven ways to pay young children for twelve to sixteen hours of daily work in terrible conditions. This is the reality for children in many developing countries; companies such as Hershey’s, Gap, and Nestlé have utilized or still utilize child labor, making profits by exploiting those who cannot resist.
However, this atrocity is not only limited to these three companies. Qahir Haji, the WCHS Amnesty International executive leading the protest against Urban Outfitters, noted that Urban Outfitters is “one of the only transnational companies that hasn’t implemented policies to prevent child labor in Uzbekistan.” And UO isn’t the only one swindling children; Uzbekistan’s own government works with the company, pulling children out of school to work in cotton fields that provide material for the clothing UO sells.
“Basically, most of the people who work in these factories live in these factories,” said Ivy Luu, the Amnesty International executive in charge of the protest against Zara. Most of Zara’s child labor facilities are in South America, where the children sew clothing. Luu stated that “the space they’re in is very cramped; they’re sleeping near needles,” and that there is “not lots of ventilation” in the factories where these children both live and work.
Victoria’s Secret also has children pick cotton in Burkina Faso; if they get tired or try to speak out, they are beaten. The Amnesty International executive Kelly Hurley says that Amnesty International selected the issue of child labor to concentrate on because “it’s something that’s really relatable here, since we buy without even knowing.”
Corporations are abusing children across the globe, relying on the ignorance of their consumers and the lack of labor laws in developing countries to gain billions of profits, all through the blood, sweat, and tears of underpaid, underfed, and overlooked children. But this can change, and you can help: The WCHS Amnesty International Club has written up a petition, which you can support here:
