Are sweatshops a necessary evil?
When people mention the term sweatshops, the images that automatically come to mind are those of factories filled with people laboring away, often working many hours a day for very low wages, in a sweltering environment that is not conducive, to say the least. Given how technology and the world have advanced and progressed over the years, why is it that conditions for sweatshops seem to have stagnated and remained the same since the 1800s? This paper therefore aims to look at what are the reasons for sweatshops to still be in use until today, what ethical concerns revolve around the topic of sweatshops, and whether there are alternatives to the current situation. Could it be despite how grim the working conditions appear to be, that sweatshops are actually a necessity?
History of Sweatshops
Sweatshops have been around for a long time, and an example of it in earlier days would be the textile mills found in Ecuador where Spanish conquerors put the native population to work
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Given the harsh working conditions that workers are put through, such as long working hours, consecutive working days without rest, and often even abuse and torture, workers are simply not paid enough in return. To begin, minimum wage levels in countries such as Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia are significantly lower than that of the United States. The federal minimum wage per hour in the United States stands at US$7.25, while it is US$1.22 in Thailand, US$0.72 in Philippines and US$0.50 in Indonesia (Wikipedia, n.d.). And yet workers are still frequently paid less than these minimums, at amounts that are barely sufficient to survive on even after considering the lower cost of living. Though many of the developing Asian countries have official minimum wage levels, the lack of reinforcements and regulations remain a huge problem (Wong,