Stop Funding Human Rights Abuses with American Money

I'm rarely moved to post any kind of position statement on here. Usually I blog about a news article or some current event and then try to provide some kind of useful analysis while demonstrating why any kind of conservative beliefs about the subject are idiocy. However, I wanted to put this up here because I think this is one of the most important issues we face today. Most people probably don't know or choose not to think about the fact that our money can fund murder, rape, and slave labor in other countries. But the truth of the matter is that it does.

It could be said that we live in the era of globalization. Although the word has many meanings, one consequence of globalization is that the entire world depends on the same economy. Basically that means everyone needs a job. It's become almost impossible for people to live "traditional" lifestyles, by which I mean the kind where people actually grow their own food or hunt or fish. People are losing the ability to live in a non-capitalist economy where they can practice a craft and trade for items from other people who practice a craft. More and more, people need money.

So what's the problem with this system? Well, as we Americans have seen amply demonstrated, the capitalist idea that the system will reach a balance between workers and employers is a load of crap. Workers don't wield anywhere near as much power as corporations. It's almost impossible for private citizens to force change on businesses without government intervention. In America, workers do enjoy some basic protections. Theoretically a job can't put your life in danger (unless you sign up for that), they can't fire you because you're a different color, and they have to pay you the minimum wage. These protections aren't nearly enough, but imagine working in a country where worker's rights are either non-existent or routinely ignored. It shouldn't be hard to imagine, since so many people do work in such places.

If you're a cynic, you'll be asking, "So what?" at this point. You're probably thinking, "Well, they could quit, or they could unionize and force the government to change the law. I don't see how this is my problem anyway. I'm not the one doing it to them." Those would all be good points, if they were true.

First of all, you know that in an economy like today's you can't just quit. Take a working-class American, for example. Given that it is impossible to live off the land legally (you'd have to live on people's private property), having a job is a necessity for paying simple living expenses. Who of us can get by without rent or food? And to be successful in getting a job, usually businesses want a way to contact you (a phone) and the knowledge that you'll reliably be able to get to work (a car). And to store and cook food, you need electricity. And funding one's own education does not count as a luxury. All this adds up pretty quickly.

Second, laborers in other countries aren't always working voluntarily. They may be virtual slaves (see article about N. Korean laborers in the Czech Republic). Or they may be actual slaves. Although I'm sure we're all aware of the many outrages of big oil companies, I was still surprised to read about the Unocal case. Unocal, a California-based oil company, was building a pipeline for natural gas through Burma (or Myanmar), which happens to be a military dictatorship. The 40-mile pipeline was "protected" by the Burmese military. While they were "protecting" it, these soldiers used the local villagers as slaves and raped local women:

Plaintiffs in the suit, who lived in a remote region near the pipeline, said they were forced to work on the project in intense tropical heat with little food or rest. Soldiers assigned to guard the pipeline were accused of killing the baby of one worker who escaped from forced labor and raping a girl and her great-aunt.

Imagine if these people had tried to unionize. Imagine if they had all quit working and protested peacefully. Many of them would have been tortured, some would have been murdered. And then they would have gone back to work.

And when the laborers are children, are we to leave them to protect themselves? Lest you think that child labor is not a serious problem, read this:

Some 250 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are working in developing countries, nearly double previous estimates. Of this total, some 120 million children are working full-time, and 130 million work part-time, according to the recent ILO report, Child Labor: Targeting the intolerable.

Some 61 percent of child workers, or nearly 153 million, are found in Asia; 32 percent, or 80 million, are in Africa and 7 percent, or 17.5 million, live in Latin America.

And if you're wondering what it is these children end up doing, check this out:

The horrors that await children in much of the world defy imagination. Although all jobs on the ILO list are not directly linked to products sent to the U.S. and other countries, many jobs, such as mining, have direct connection to international exports. According to the ILO, some of the worst child labor situations include:

Slavery While these practices are often underground, the ILO report points out that children are still being sold outright for a sum of money. Other times, landlords buy child workers from their tenants, or labor "contractors" pay rural families in advance in order to take their children away to work in carpet-weaving, glass manufacturing or prostitution. Child slavery of this type has long been reported in South Asia, Southeast Asia and West Africa, despite vigorous official denial of its existence.

Agriculture Children can be found mixing, loading and applying pesticides, fertilizers or herbicides, some of which are highly toxic and potentially carcinogenic. Pesticides exposure poses a considerably higher risk to children than to adults. Mortality among Sri Lanka children farm workers from pesticides poisoning is greater than from a combination of childhood diseases such as malaria, tetanus, diphtheria, polio and whooping cough.

Mining Child labor is used in small-scale mines in many countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Child miners work long hours without adequate protective equipment, clothing or training.

Ceramics and glass factory work Child labor in these industries is common in Asia but also can be found in other regions. Children often must carry molten loads of glass dragged from tank furnaces at a temperature of 1500-1800 degrees Centigrade. The high temperatures lead to heat stress, cataracts, burns and lacerations. Also common are injuries from broken glass and flying glass particles; hearing impairment from noise; eye injuries and eye strain from poor lighting; and exposure to silica dust, lead and toxic fumes such as carbon monoxide asulfurhur dioxide.

Matches and fireworks Match production normally takes place in small cottage units or in small-scale village factories where the risk of fire and explosion is present at all time. Children as young as 3 years of age are reported to work in match factories in unventilated rooms.

Deep-sea fishing In many Asian countries, especially Myanmar (Burma), Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, children work in muro-ami fishing, which involves deep-sea diving without the use of protective equipment. Children are used to bang on coral reefs to scare the fish into nets. Each fishing ship employs up to 300 boys between 10 and 15 years old recruited from pneighborhoodsoods. Divers reset the nets several times a day, so that the children are often in the water for up to 12 hours. Dozens of children are killed or injured each year from drowning or from decompression illness or other fatal accidents from exposure to high atmospheric pressure. Predatory fish such as sharks, barracudas, and poisonous sea snakes also attack the children.

Children 5 to 14. Think about that.

And finally, I can still imagine someone saying, "Well that's all horrible, but what's it got to do with me?" In case you missed it: "Although all jobs on the ILO list are not directly linked to products sent to the U.S. and other countries, many jobs, such as mining, have direct connection to international exports." A more common situation is in the clothing industry. For example, Nike shoes and clothing. Have you ever bought a pair of Nikes? Let's see what Global Exchange says about how Nike treats its employees:

When the Nike campaign began in 1996, Nike was not even paying their Indonesian workers the minimum wage. In fact, all the shoe companies doing business in Indonesia would petition the government year after year for an exception from paying the minimum wage on the grounds that it would be a "hardship" for the factories to pay it. And this was a wage that, according to the Indonesian government itself, covered only 70% of the basic needs of one person!

Ever bought clothes at WalMart? Where did those clothes come from?

Many Americans believe the clothing purchased in U.S. Wal-Mart stores is manufactured in America. In fact, the majority of its private label clothing is manufactured in at least 48 countries around the world, but not in the U.S.

In his autobiography, Made in America: My Story founding Wal-Mart President, Sam Walton, proselytized "Buy American." USA Today, August 14, 2001, reported that, "Wal-Mart has more than 1,107 international operations." The newspaper also reports that, "Bangladesh workers earn as little as nine cents an hour making shirts for Wal-Mart.

Hypocritically, Wal-Mart ran a "Buy American" and "Buy Mexican" marketing campaigns simultaneously, all the while reinvesting its all-American dollars overseas.

Wal-Mart is the largest importer of Chinese goods. 10% of all Chinese imports are imported by Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart even established its own global procurement division this year, abandoning the pretense to its traditional "buy American" campaign. This team searches the globe for the cheapest raw materials, manufacturers and shipping routes. They allow Wal-Mart to relocate factories from one country to the next in its endless quest to squeeze countries for lower wages and cheaper goods. (LA Times 12/03)

"Buy American." Right. And if you want to know what WalMart is up to in those countries, the website I linked gives us plenty of details:

Some of the abuses in foreign factories that produce goods for Wal-Mart include:

* Forced overtime

* Locked bathrooms

* Starvation wages

* Pregnancy tests

* Denial of access to health care

* Workers fired and blacklisted if they try to defend their rights


The National Labor Committee reported in September 1999 that the Kathie Lee clothing label (made for Wal-Mart by Caribbean Apparel, Santa Ana, El Salvador) conducted sweatshop conditions of forced overtime. Workers hours were Monday to Friday from 6:50 a.m. to 6:10 p.m., and Saturday from 6:50 a.m. to 5:40 p.m. There are occasional shifts to 9:40 p.m. It is common for the cutting and packing departments to work 20-hour shifts from 6:50 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. Anyone unable or refusing to work the overtime hours will be suspended and fined, and upon repeat "offenses" they will be fired. This factory is in an American Free Trade Zone. (http://www.nlcnet.org/KATHLEE/elsalvinfo.html)

Wal-Mart regularly says it does not tolerate child labor or forced or prison labor, but when it comes to walking the walk the company refuses to reveal its Chinese contractors and will not allow independent, unannounced inspections of its contractors facilities.

Clothing sewn in China is usually done by young women, 17 to 25 year old (at 25 they are fired as too old) forced to work seven days a week, often past midnight for 12 to 28 cents an hour, with no benefits. Or that the women are housed in crowded, dirty dormitories, 15 to a room, and fed a thin rice gruel. The workers are kept under 24-hour-a-day surveillance and can be fired for even discussing factory conditions. The factories in China operate under a veil of secrecy, behind locked metal gates, with no factory names posted and no visitors allowed. China's authorities do not allow independent human rights, religious or women's groups to exist, and all attempts to form independent unions have been crushed. (http://www.nlcnet.org, 10/22/02)

US Sweatshop Conditions

In October 10, 2002, the National Organization for Women (NOW) reported that the Maine Department of Labor ordered Wal-Mart to pay the largest fine in state history for violating child labor laws. The Department of Labor discovered 1,436 child labor law infractions at 20 Wal-Mart chains in the state.

Look at that, they don't even respect child labor laws in our own country!

And as for luxury items, what's more luxurious than diamonds? Most people are awed by their beauty, but only because the blood-drenched stones are cleaned up before they get over here. In case you're not fully aware of the consequences of what are known as "Conflict Diamonds", here's a few facts:

Why are human rights activists concerned about diamonds?
Diamonds in Sierra Leone, Angola, and the Democratic Republic of Congo have fueled and funded civil war and gross abuses against the civilian population. Sierra Leone is of particular concern because of the extraordinary abusiveness of the rebel forces that control most of the country's diamond production. Since 1991, the RUF has fought to control Sierra Leon's rich diamond-producing areas. Those diamonds, transshipped through Liberia, Burkina Faso, and other countries, have provided the RUF with millions of dollars to buy sophisticated weapons. The RUF has forced millions of Sierra Leoneans from their homes and committed tens of thousands of abuses, including raping, recruitment of child soldiers, and the amputation of hands of thousands of children, men, and women. Despite the presence of over 10,000 UN peacekeepers, the RUF currently controls approximately three-fourths of Sierra Leone, and has spread the war over diamonds to neighboring Guinea. The link between diamonds and abuses in both Sierra Leone and Angola is so strong that the United Nations has imposed an embargo against diamonds from rebel-controlled areas of both countries.

Yes, we are supposed to have controls against allowing trade in these diamonds. However, they don't always work.

'Blood Diamonds' Still Sold by U.S. Retailers

Myth that this isn't an American problem: busted. Myth that workers in foreign countries can change things for themselves: busted.

By God, at the very least we owe it to these people to stop giving money to the people and governments that are oppressing them! This horrendous treatment of humans in other nations cannot be allowed to continue. We must meet the enemy with a two-pronged attack: take our money elsewhere and force our government to keep US businesses from dealing with governments and other companies that abuse their workers. Whatever processes or laws we have in place to keep US companies from being involved in these operations are not nearly strong enough. The lure of the dollar is stronger than any laws against it, but if we would penalize these companies enough to offset any profits they might make from slave labor I'm sure it would catch their attention. Furthermore, American companies could end much of this problem if they would simply not buy from third-world manufacturers who do not meet American labor standards.

I say that any individual who works for an American company or who works for a company that makes products for or sells to an American company should get the same protections and rights as workers employed in the United States. The same minimum wage in American dollars, the same limits on hours worked, the same oversight of job hazards, the same equal-opportunity protections and every other protection, right, or standard practice that we get here. No child should have their hand ripped off in a textile machine so that I can get $1 t-shirs. No warlord should get a single penny from me because I decide to buy a diamond for my wife.

Let's end this today. I will no longer buy any products from Wal-Mart that may be tainted with abuse. I can't promise you not to buy groceries from there (because I'm fairly certain Minute-Maid is not abusing its workers and it's cheaper there) but no clothing or other manufactured goods. I promise to try to research any goods that I buy in the future (so no Nikes for me). I will write the President, my Representative, and my Senators. I'll support the various human rights organizations that are trying to make a difference. I hope you will too.

The President of the United States
US Senate
US House of Representatives

Human Rights Watch
Amnesty International