According to new research from Booz & Company, presented in the Summer 2010 issue of Strategy+Business,1 up to 1 billion women who have remained
outside of the mainstream global economy are about to make a huge impact as
entrepreneurs, employees, and consumers during the next 10 years and beyond.
How have that
many women remained hidden from sight? To some extent, the answer lies in
sweatshops in Vietnam, China, Indonesia, Thailand, and elsewhere.
For example,
contractors producing shoes for Nike have used the labor of underage girls who
earn barely subsistence-level wages and are frequently exposed to toxins.
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The contractors
in China produced about 78 million pairs of shoes, made by roughly 160,000
workers. The shoes sold at retail for about $85 a pair, while the workers
received the equivalent of $1 per pair.
According to
the website FactsAndDetails.com,2Asian workers who make shoes for American consumers earn as
little as 10 cents an hour, and work as much as 17 hours a day.
Similarly,
Adidas’ contractors used “slave labor” in China to make soccer balls for the
World Cup in 1998. The London newspaper The Mail3 reports that Apple iPods are made by
workers who are paid $50 a month to work 15-hour days.
Barbie dolls
are made at a factory in Guangdong province near Hong Kong by women or young
girls who are housed in sub-human conditions, according to The Wall Street
Journal. The Journal reporter, Kathy Chen, wrote of the dorms,
“Cold water sputters on for a few hours twice a day, while the meat served is
too tough to swallow and has hair in it.” The girls make the equivalent of $24
a month.
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For example, in
a factory in Shenzhen, China, workers who make Bratz dolls are paid 17 cents
for each unit, and work more than 90 hours a week. The dolls sell for $16 in
the U.S.
But reforms are
under way, and they are freeing those women from slave labor or near-slave
labor. As they move...
