Where Sweatshops Are a Dream. Adapted from Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times January 15, 2009 Many Americans are deeply offended by the idea of buying products that are produced in "sweatshops" in poor areas of developing countries where workers, often children, are paid unimaginably low wages in dangerous factories. These well-meaning people want to try to enforce fair labor standards in trade agreements so that factories have decent conditions and wages. They are concerned about the way that sweatshops exploit the poor.
But the problem really is that there are not enough sweatshops. For families who live in the dump in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, scavenging for garbage they could sell for five cents a pound, a job in a sweatshop is a cherished dream. It is an escalator out of poverty, the kind of ambition that parents everywhere have for their children.
Sweatshops are only a symptom of poverty, not a cause. Banning them because they do not meet the human rights standards of developed countries closes off one route out of poverty. In many poor countries, slaving away at a sewing machine is a good job.
Many people who work in development are coming to believe that one of the best hopes for the poorest countries would be to build their manufacturing industries. But global campaigns against sweatshops make that unlikely.
Americans have a hard time accepting that sweatshops can help people. But take it from 13-year-old Neuo Chanthou, who earns a bit less than $1 a day scavenging in the dump. She's wearing a "Playboy" shirt and hat that she found amid the filth, and she worries about her sister, who lost part of her hand when a garbage truck ran over her.
"It's dirty, hot and smelly here," she said wistfully. "A factory is better."