A large percentage of slaves today are children who are the same age as those who sit in our classrooms, some as young as four. Working under harsh conditions with little or no pay, few family ties, and inadequate shelter and food, child slaves are the victims of an economic system that prevails over the welfare of children, ethics and human dignity. Child slavery will never end until it becomes an issue of global concern. Education about slavery and its causes must be present in our classroom.
There is a close relationship between child slavery and adults’ unemployment and exploitation. One reason why they occur is that the Structural Adjustment programs of the IMF and World Bank force developing nations to continuously cut back in order to export more at a cheaper rate and race to the bottom. Labour, as one example of this, gets cheaper and cheaper; which benefits multinational companies but not the workers themselves.
Famous brands like Nike, Adidas, Coca-Cola, H&M, C&A, Levi Strauss, Walt Disney, and many others have been accused of violating workers’ rights.
