Modern Day Child Slavery
Modern Day Child Slavery Typical American youth spend the majority of their time turning on, turning up and tuning in to their personal technology. Children can command their iPads, iPhones and iPods with a single touch. While most adolescents find their day controlling technology around them, that is not the case for their international counterparts. Nearly 215 million children and teens worldwide spend their time struggling to break free from controlling worlds where freedom is just a dream (International Labor Organization). Childhood slavery is a violation of human rights that needs to be recognized and remedied. In poverty-stricken Meerut, India, young boys hunch over for hours on end, attempting to sew soccer panels
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Gap, Nestlé and Victoria's Secret are three main corporations that CNN’s Freedom Project exposed. Billion dollar companies, like Nestlé chocolates, rely on underaged children to harvest cocoa beans in extreme conditions. One laborer, Abdul, is a ten year old boy who works day after day, hacking at cocoa pods to reveal cocoa beans. Although Abdul has worked this job for over three years, he has nothing but the ripped clothes on his back, food every so often and scars from a machete (McKenzie). Abdul has never had chocolate, never gone to school and never seen technology. All he knows is work. Victoria Secret also employs children to pick cotton for lingerie items. In Burkina Faso, a small country in Africa, Clarisse and other children work 15 hour days, bending at the waist (Simpson). During harvest, Clarisse works in 100 degree weather picking cotton from a strip of land equivalent to four American football fields (Simpson). Her boss gives her the occasional beating, and if she’s lucky, a meal once a day. Lean and strong, Clarisse doesn’t have a bed, toilet or pay. She is a modern day slave. Gap also recently admitted using child labor in India. According to one ABC News Report “......children were working without pay as virtual slaves in filthy conditions, with a single, backed-up toilet and bowls of rice covered in flies. They slept on the roof (Brown).” Although CNN reports these companies are working with the UNICEF to try and stop the labor, they could do better (McKenzie). Big corporations need to step into action and stop childhood slavery before it’s too
Gap, Nestlé and Victoria's Secret are three main corporations that CNN’s Freedom Project exposed. Billion dollar companies, like Nestlé chocolates, rely on underaged children to harvest cocoa beans in extreme conditions. One laborer, Abdul, is a ten year old boy who works day after day, hacking at cocoa pods to reveal cocoa beans. Although Abdul has worked this job for over three years, he has nothing but the ripped clothes on his back, food every so often and scars from a machete (McKenzie). Abdul has never had chocolate, never gone to school and never seen technology. All he knows is work. Victoria Secret also employs children to pick cotton for lingerie items. In Burkina Faso, a small country in Africa, Clarisse and other children work 15 hour days, bending at the waist (Simpson). During harvest, Clarisse works in 100 degree weather picking cotton from a strip of land equivalent to four American football fields (Simpson). Her boss gives her the occasional beating, and if she’s lucky, a meal once a day. Lean and strong, Clarisse doesn’t have a bed, toilet or pay. She is a modern day slave. Gap also recently admitted using child labor in India. According to one ABC News Report “......children were working without pay as virtual slaves in filthy conditions, with a single, backed-up toilet and bowls of rice covered in flies. They slept on the roof (Brown).” Although CNN reports these companies are working with the UNICEF to try and stop the labor, they could do better (McKenzie). Big corporations need to step into action and stop childhood slavery before it’s too