The issue we decided to focus on was sweatshops in general, so child labor and exploitation of the workers. We chose this topic because sweatshops mainly affect people of color and in poverty. It is important for us not to ignore sweatshops, even though we do not see it as openly here in America there are still people in other countries struggling with sweatshops. According to this article written by People's World states the following:
“ The word "sweatshop" conjures up images of garment factories in third world countries, such as those in Honduras, Nicaragua, the Philippines and Bangladesh. But workers at T-Mobile's call centers in the U.S. encounter the same kinds of sweatshop-like conditions.” Basically this is saying that sweatshops don’t always stay true to what is thought about them. This is important because people always see issues differently when they see it hurt people they live around. If they hear a story about a sweatshop workers across the world, they are most likely not going to care as much. Moreover we should be trying to help those being economically oppressed through modern day slavery; in addition, we must bring awareness to this overlooked issue.
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I’m passionate about this issue because it happens everywhere. Although most people only pay attention to third world countries where there are often more sweatshops and less labor rules; there can still be some form of sweatshops here in America. Like this story that was written in the Chicago Tribune, “Mexican immigrants were paid as little as $3.50 an hour to work in Chinese buffet-style restaurants by employment agencies that forced them to sleep five to a room on dumpster mattresses in rat- and cockroach-infested apartments…”. This proves that these issues are so much closer that we think. Not to mention the fact that they are putting people's lives in danger by overworking them and giving them only dollars a day. What gets me even more aggravated is that the restaurant does get a lot of business, so they should be able to pay their workers a decent wage. If the corporation is demanding so much production from them, then they should at least pay them more. Nobody should be taken advantage of, especially if they are more vulnerable than others. In my example above, the employers knew that the immigrant workers would not call the police and deal with the low wages. People should not have to dealing with these injustices.
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