Poverty and Sweatshops

Poverty is a major problem in the world. It’s not something that is necessarily always in the news and sometimes it is a bit of “Out of sight, out of mind”.

1.7 billion people in the world live in poverty. Poverty is defined as living on under $1 a day. That is over all their expenses: food, shelter, hygiene, ect.

People in situations like this are often desperate for work and will do anything. They find employment making things like clothes and sports balls in places known as “Sweatshops”. Sweatshops are often over crowded and have poor conditions. The people who work there are paid very poor wages for a lot of work. Sweatshops also use child labour to make products.

All over the world, some of the biggest companies use items made in sweat shops for their products. Some of the companies include Nike, Adidas, Disney and Tesco.

(Nike Sweatshop)

So what can we do?

There are alternative options for most things:

Do a bit of research into the clothing brands you like and see whether they use sweatshops.

Look for the Fair Trade symbol on Coffees, chocolates, teas and cafes.

Also, you can use http://www.jintasport.com.au/ for sports balls and goods or http://www.etiko.com.au/ for clothing. These sites have great prices and great goods-trust me, it's my favourite place to get netballs :)

It is such a big issue, we all need to be aware of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVuScVCF1Ws check this out. It's the truth :(