I have recently graduated from high school along with thousands of young men and women all around the country. Like many, I will be going on to college next fall. Most people, when I talk about going to college, remark that it was one of the best times of their life. The reasons they give all have the same basis: freedom. It's a word that is hard for us to completely comprehend as Americans, privileged Americans at that (if you have access to the internet, I think that brings you to a certain level of privilege). Many people in our own modern day live without freedom, in fact, many live in outright slavery.
Yes, that's right, slavery. The age-old institution has not been driven from humanity. There is a high chance that the rugs, clothing, cars, coffee, chocolate, and bricks sold in stores were made by actual slaves. In a not-so-surprising twist of fate, the major source of slaves in the modern world is West Africa (once a favorite raiding spot for Europeans). It is estimated that nearly twenty-seven million people have been pressed into slavery. Forced to work under the threat of violence and for no pay, women, children, and men labor for twenty hours a day on farms and in fields, in restaurants or factories, or have forced sex with twenty clients a day - not because they choose to, and not because they are making any money. They have no choice because, yes, they are real slaves - they have been tempted, trafficked, and trapped by the intra- and transnational modern day slave industry. One would think that this might, as awful as it is, happen only in "underdeveloped" nations—the horror story of desperately poor young men and women who are promised decent wages, then dragged off and pressed into slavery (or children whose parents sold them). The trouble is, modern-day slavery is closer to home than you think.
The CIA documents between 45,000-50,000 women and children are trafficked into the United States each year as slaves. The number excludes men enslaved (estimated at a third of the above figure) and gives only an annual approximation. Therefore, right now, in our freedom-loving USA, there could be nearly 100,000 people arriving not under the freedom of Ellis Island but instead enduring the brutality of forced house, kitchen, office, field, brothel, and factory worker. They are hidden behind barbed wire or the doors of swanky apartments. Slaves in the United States look just like secretaries, nannies, prostitutes, assistant chefs, field workers, seamstresses, and waiters. The difference is that they are not being paid and they are not allowed to leave.
Other citizens of our global world don't live in outright slavery. They technically are not "owned". However, they are enslaved with the power of money. When we think of globalization, we think of large companies (mostly American) moving into underdeveloped areas and giving people jobs. We might think these people are being exploited but then we think, hey, they have jobs and if the factory was not there, they would not be doing anything else. That is a falsehood; the simple fact is, these people did do something before working in a factory. They were farmers until the company or the government forced them off their land to make room for 'modernization'. Well, then you think, sure, $1.25 an hour is not much, but it's a good job for someone over there in (insert Third World nation here). $1.25 an hour is the wage of a Nike factory worker in Indonesia.
Two concerned individuals, Jim Keady and Leslie Kretzu, asked Nike to allow them to work in one of their factories. If the treatment of workers was truly as good as the company said, they would tell the whole world and become Nike's biggest advocate. Just let them go and discover the truth. Not surprisingly, Nike rejected their proposal. Unable to actually attain a job in one of those factories, they decided to do the next best thing. They would go to Indonesia, live with the workers, and live on their salaries and talk with factory workers about what their experience was like at the factory. You can guess the results.
Within a month, these two physically fit (Jim Keady was a former athlete) people lost over twenty pounds each. They found that the workers lived in abject poverty, desperation, and horrible terror. The salary was barely able to keep the people existing; and that is just about all they did, exist - not live. They worked extremely long hours, six (and sometimes seven) days a week just to have a tiny meal when they came home. Their children were undernourished or malnourished because they could not afford adequate foods. Healthcare is unaffordable, especially for the young children. Some children are sick for months simply because mom and dad cannot afford to buy the simplest of medicines. Furthermore, the factory disposes of the excess product (ie, rubber soles) by burning them in giant heaps. Even if the fumes are not outright deadly, they are certainly carcinogenic, and the factory burns these every other day in the town square (where all the children are playing).
Women are forced to continue working on the lines even when they begin to menstruate. By Indonesian law, women are allowed a two-day reprieve for menstruation. Nike will claim it is an industry leader because it has clinics for its employees attached to the factory. Now, if a woman is having bad pains due to her menstruation and she decides to see the clinic doctors and ask for her (law-given) two-day reprieve, the doctors there will automatically assume she's trying to get out of work and will demand to see her bleeding before giving her the necessary note for her supervisor. Considering many of these women are devout Muslims and wear clothing to cover even their heads, the humiliation involved in this situation is extreme. Other women in their low twenties are already infertile because of the chemicals they breathe day in and day out at the factory.
These workers live in terror. They are at the will of their supervisors who have nearly complete control over them and take advantage of their desperate situation. Incidents where men and women are beaten with screwdrivers and hammers occur. Union organizers are threatened, beaten, and cajoled. One woman, even after being threatened, continued her work organizing the workers until she "disappeared". The local thugs dragged her from her home in the middle of the night into the nearby wilderness, repeatedly raped and beat her until she was dead.
I am not (nor are Jim Keady and Leslie Kretzu) trying to pinpoint Nike as a terrible company while all the rest are angels (the factory that they examined actually made products for Nike and Adidas). Jim Keady and Leslie Kretzu only selected Nike because Nike is the self-declared industry leader. Sweatshops around the world produce 95% of the clothing that we can buy. The next time you put on that Gap sweatshirt with the big Gap logo on the front of it or wear sneakers with a Nike logo, just remember who is using you as a billboard.
As we sit here, in the lap of luxury that is the United States, we must recognize the sheer awfulness of the situations of other people in our global community. Perhaps everyone cannot own a BMW, or even a car, but the most basic rights of the people of the world must be respected. Kevin Bales, the leading expert on global slavery and author of Disposable People (California Press, 2000) asks, "If there are still slaves, how can you be proud of your freedom?" And, "If we can't choose to stop slavery how can we say that we are free?" Unlike the slaves in West Africa, the factory workers in Indonesia, or the sweat-shop workers in New York City, we have freedom. We have the freedom to be aware of the plight of our fellow people, to make others aware, and to do something about it. After all, what good is our freedom if we do not use it to free others?
What can you do? Learn more about these issues and write your local Congressional delegates (contact information is at U.S. House of Representative and U.S. Senate) if you are an American. Tell others to do the same. Some good websites: