Throughout United States history there have been many labor issues: unequal pay for women, wage theft, the exploitation of immigrant workers, and many others. One of these many others is child labor. There is little to no child labor within the United States borders; however it is a harder statement to make that we are not involved in child labor around the world. With large corporations sending their labor to contractors around the world (another issue), it is hard to decide whether these corporations are aware of their workers and their conditions. One appalling example of child labor I read about was located in Delhi, India. I found the story on http://www.CNN.com the article is titled “Gap: Reporting of Kids’ Sweatshop ‘Deeply Disturbing’” and can be found here.
               Gap claims to have always prided themselves in not allowing violations to their labor agreement in any of the factories around the world. According to the article they Gap has 90 agents working around the world investigating all of their factories for non-compliant factories. However, this instance seems to have fallen through the cracks.

                Found in the article are a few stories. This particular instance in 2007 involved kids as young as 10 years old working for 16 hours a day. There was also excrement flowing from a flooded toilet into the hallways. Oh, and here is the kicker, they are not even getting paid. According to the article they were sold to the factory by their parents. Other grim working conditions include any children who whine, cry, or complain are hit with a rubber pipe or oily cloths are stuffed down their mouths. In the article the president responded by saying, “It’s deeply, deeply disturbing to all of us… I feel violated and I feel very upset and angry with our vendor and the subcontractor who made this very, very, very unwise decision”. Gap then fired the Indian company, and did not sell any of the products that came out of those shops. The year prior (2006) they fired 23 other factories who violated their labor code.

                Due to the way Gap spoke about the event and the way they handled, I believe they do a good job with how they handle their business. Today’s news involves so many negative stories of large corporations exploiting workers, so it feels good to hear of a cooperation being responsible for their business. Many of the countries who have child labor are hurting themselves. This hurts the growth of the economy and slows, if not reverses, their development, especially in their tertiary sector. If we are to have a true globalized and humane planet corporations need to take the route that Gap has and be responsible for their business.