Dan Edelen writes about the human cost of the cheap plastic toys that fill our kids’ closets:
At one time, middle-class Americans made those toys. Now they’re made by very young adults (and in most cases, children, as some estimates say up to 250 million children between five and fourteen-years-old slave away) in factories in countries many Americans can’t find on a map. The factory owners house them in barracks where they sleep head to toe. They work twelve to sixteen hour days, seven days a week, 365 days a year, and even on their limited breaks are typically not allowed to venture off the factory property without supervision. In truth, they have nowhere else to go. Worst of all, if we found the kind of coinage lying on the street that those workers make as their hourly rate, we’d think it not worth the risk to bend over.
While some may say that a few cents on the dollar goes a long way in one of those countries, most of those factory workers have to pay for their food and lodging in the factory barracks. That rent may equal their pay.
They are 21st century indentured servants.
All this so that our kids can fill their shelves with cheap toys, and we can fill our closets with cheap clothes. Edelen’s response to the consumerism that a Happy Meal toy embodies was to move his family out of suburbia to the country. Most working stiffs don’t have that option, but fortunately he offers some practical ideas for the rest of us:
I’m trying to live with less. I won’t buy something unless I’m replacing what wore out. And even then, some items I simply won’t replace. I’m going to try to buy American if possible, to keep jobs in a country that still has some labor laws to protect people. If I need to buy two pairs of shoes, I’ll forgo one pair if it means spending a bit more to keep my neighbor from losing his job. Maybe that will send a message to those corporations paying slave wages in some country I can’t place on the map.