Is
globalization a good thing? Many
people think not. Sometimes globalization causes problems. One of them
is the increase
of '
child labor'.
In some countries, children work and don't go to school. Most
work in agriculture (farming) for
cash
crops. A cash crop is a crop made to sell for money, not to eat
or trade with. These crops are usually sold to a foriegn country.
Sometimes a foriegn company owns the plantation the children work at.
Some examples of cash crops are coffee, bananas, or shrimp. Coconut
fiber, or 'natadecoco' is a famous cash crop sold to Japan.
Some children work in factories that make things for developed
countries like Japan or the U.S.. Some of these factories are very bad
and people call them '
sweatshops'
(like a hot gymnasium) because they are so hot and the work is so hard.
A typical 'sweatshop' is a big clothing factory that makes things for a
big company like
Nike or
Uniclo. Many of the soccer balls we
use are made by children. Whether it be cash crops or factories, the
children are working to sell things to developed countries. We are
partly to blame for this problem.
These 'sweatshops' have been increasing because of '
outsourcing' (out= somewhere else,
source= where you get the thing). Outsourcing means when a big company
makes a factory in another country because the labor is cheaper there.
More and more companies from rich countries are outsourcing and making
factories in poor countries. This means there are more and more
factories in poor countries, where children have to work and can't go
to school.
You may say:
They
should make
a rule to stop this!, but it
isn't as easy as that. Sometimes,
if they make a rule that children can't work, the children
just end up doing even more dangerous things, like prostitution. Other
times, they make a rule that any factory that uses child labor will
be fined. However, then, the factory
simply pays the children less in order to pay the fine. Finally,
sometimes if the rules seem to work, like for example, if the workers
make a
union and get better
pay, the big company from the rich country simply moves the factory to
another poor country.
You may ask:
So, what can we
do? Well, the thing that can really change this is
public opinion. Nike used to
have
many sweatshops, but they got a bad reputation because many people held
demonstrations. These
demonstrations
happen all over the world but one very famous one was in Seattle (Mr.
Walsh's hometown!) Because of these demonstrations,
Nike changed!
Really! Uniclo also is very
worried about getting a bad reputation so they advertise that they
don't make sweatshops.
Some people in Japan and other countries know about this problem
and buy things from
fair trade companies
like
the
people tree that don't use child labor and pay the workers
better than the 'sweatshops'.
As
mentioned before, there are also many
demonstrations
against free trade because 'free trade' means that more
multinational
companies can do things like use child labor in developing countries.
In order to change public opinion, we first need
awareness. We will march on Sunday
and we will ask people: Do you know about this problem? At the least,
people will see our
warmth and kindness and they will start to think. It is a start. Let's
go!
Resources for essay:
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/inf/download/child/childday05.pdf
http://acejapan.org/cl-net
http://jicrc.org
or
use google to search for 児童労働
fair trade 日本
http://www.fairtradecenter.org/index.htm
http://magman.cocolog-nifty.com/worldfairtrader/cat3726390/
http://www.peopletree.co.jp
