Rebuttle Paper

Kristof's argument on sweatshops in "Let Them Sweat," is a good argument on why sweatshops are good, but his points are also very insensitive to the subject matter. To understand the working conditions of people working in sweatshops is not easy, but there are also arguments that could be made against Kristof's piece. Those reasons being that children working in sweatshops are not able to attend school to receive an education, there are very dangerous working conditions, and there is too little of pay for all the work done by the sweatshop workers.

The International Labor Organization says that 250 million children between the ages of five and fourteen work in developing countries (Sweatshops and Child Labor). Many of these children are forced to work. They are deprived of an education and a normal childhood. This disables the ability to have a bright future for these children working, they are simply stuck in a dead end workplace for the rest of their lives. Some of the children are restrained and beaten, and some are denied the right to leave the workplace and go home to their families. Some are even kidnapped and forced to work (Sweatshops and Child Labor). People working in sweatshops have the right to an education and a fair wage, they have a right to spend a fair amount of time with their families as well, but most sweatshop workers are denied those rights and are forced to work in unfair conditions. One problem encountered is that some factories are monitored by inspectors. The problem is most times they will call in advance to let the factories know when they will be inspecting. Monitoring seems like it would be a good idea, but does no good when factories know when they will be coming, so it is easier to hide all of the things they are doing wrong. This gives the factory time to hide child workers and clean the place up (Sweatshops and Child Labor).

Sweatshops around the world have been ignoring the conditions of their workers, especially to women, for many years now. "In some Indonesian sweatshops, women were forced to take down their pants and reveal to factory doctors that they were menstruating, in order to claim their legal right to menstrual-leave"(mtholyoke). How does this give the sweatshop workers any rights? It doesn't. They work these people so hard that even their rights as people are being taken away from them. The conditions bestowed upon the workers are far more dangerous than they are being compensated for, and far more dangerous than they deserve. It should not be allowed for women and children to have to work for 15 hours at a time, eating very little, and getting very few bathroom breaks. It is dangerous to be in murky, hot conditions for that period of time with little to no breaks; it could cause workers to faint or pass out of exhaustion or dehydration. The Department of Labor indicates that 50% of garment factories in the U.S. violate two or more basic labor laws, establishing them as sweatshops. Sweatshops exist wherever there is an opportunity to take advantage of workers who lack the knowledge to stand up for themselves. This is why sweatshops are so prevalent in third world countries, where people will do almost anything to earn money in order to survive. Typical sweatshop employees, 90%