Socially Sanctioned Slavery

We no longer bring slaves to our country in order to get cheap labour. Instead, we now travel to their country and exploit them at source.

Whether it be establishing mass-production factories, buying up land from family-farms for large-scale export agriculture, or traveling to developing countries for budget tourism – it all results in the same end: we get too much for too little.

How do we justify the fact that we feel entitled to purchase a t-shirt for a mere $10? Do we stop to think that the cotton in our t-shirt first needed to be planted, harvested, processed, dyed, and woven into fabric? Do we stop to consider that that fabric then needed to be cut, designed, and sewed into a garmet, and that the garment then needed to be packaged, shipped (or flown) over wide oceans, distributed into trucks, and then delivered to the store where we will buy it?

Do we stop to ask how many fingers touched the various components of this garment before it even arrived in our country? The cotton farmer, the dyer, the weaver, the cutter, and the sewer. What are the lives like of the people who own those fingers? How much of our $10 actually goes in their hands? Pennies? Less?

Do we recognize that in most circumstances, every time we make a purchase from a large retailer, we provide a hefty reward to the slave-owner who paid meager wages to his overseas “help” to make our clothing in sweatshop-like conditions?

Some would argue: “At least they have a job now. Before, they were even worse off”.

Thus we convince ourselves that we are helping others while also helping ourselves- a win/win situation. Is it really?? Do we actually believe that the benefit and value we gain is even close to the value those who serve us abroad get? We get low-priced goods which allows us to save extra disposible income to allow for the luxuries of travel, personal growth experiences, and retirement savings. They get a few pennies and a job that is dependent upon foreigners who care more about their profits than the welfare of their servants.

Sadly, slavery is not dead – it has just been outsourced. We can no longer see it, but we support it every day.