Sweat Shirts from Sweat Shops

Part I. Intellectual Standards

1. “The vast majority of Transterra’s college apparel is manufactured in a factory in Honduras which employs primarily women and children who operate under horrific working conditions”

Significance – What other areas of the industry does Transterra supply? Are there other stores, mainstream stores like Target and Walmart that carry their products? Should we only avoid wearing/buying apparel on campus or related to the campus? Why be localized with the choice not to support underpaid, overworked, underage workers? If the statement were significant, we should get more information as to how common the practice to outsource production occurs. What percentage of our clothing is now produced in countries like Honduras, Indonesia, Vietnam etc. Other Third World countries face similar if not worse working conditions. Also, the focus on women and children as workers should be explained. Is the male population not available to take jobs like this? In some cases the country in some sort of civil war were men are not home to support their families forcing women and children to work.

2. “WorldWeave observers noticed some children who appeared to be as young as eleven or twelve working with dangerous fabric cutting machines – in spite of local laws that prohibit anyone under the age of fourteen from doing factory work”

Accuracy – Who with WorldWeave verified the actual ages of said workers? How was the age gauged? Some young adults look younger than they really are. Is it really true that children under the ages of 14 are present ding factory work? Are children under 14 legally allowed to do janitorial work in a factory hence placing them close to machines but not doing actual factory work? We could be provided with a roster or a statistical representation of the roster with ages and sexes of every worker in the factory. Gauging age by merely looking at someone does not constitute as accurate, it may be a close estimate but not an...