Businesses that need an ethical model make-over

Children are by nature more innocent, naive, and trusting than their grown counterparts. They look to their parents, or other care takers, for both guidance and security. They are usually so sure in fact that their elders will always have their best interests at heart that they will blindly follow any instructions. This is purely human nature, as just in the wild a cub will look to its mother to show them the means in which they will be able to grow, survive, and thrive. Human beings though are a bit more complex and this can be both a blessing and a curse at times. You see, what sadly is effecting 27 million children world wide is that the very people they look to for protection are the ones that are the responsible for their bonds to slavery. Forcing children into slavery is far from an ethical model but it is happening more than anyone would like to think.

These little bodies are forced to work in sweat shops and other industrial markets, as well as numerous other unimaginable trades, by a variety of ways. Some of them are simply sold outright to eager buyers in need of cheap and consistent labor. These children will be over worked, underfed, and usually cruelly imprisoned as they or their entire families go up for auction. It is perhaps the youngest that are the most appealing because their tender aged innocence that makes it easier to manipulate their developing minds and they will offer up less resistance.

Children being sold into slavery is just one means in which these industrialists obtain them, and there are plenty that are simply unwilling to pay even the small bondage fare to actually buy a slave. So instead they will steal them away in raids and then force them to work. This is the case in Sudan in which it is estimated that since 1983 there have been up to 14,000 of those who were abducted to be used as slaves. The girls will be sent to work in a domestic field and the boys are usually then sent to race camels in the Gulf. While there is supposedly laws to stop the slave trade and then release all that are captured, there isn't much in the way of materialization on that end. Slavery is not 'legal' anywhere in the World, but especially in poorer countries it runs rampant.

Even if a child is not a slave per se, they can be sent off to work at a very early age sipmly because they need to help support their families. There are sweat shops in plenty of areas, and in New Delhi where many families are made up of eight kids, those as young as eight or nine will be sent to work in these garment shops. Entire families can also be held as slaves for debts they may owe, and often the amount owed is under $50.

Because of the tricky nature and cover ups surrounding the child slave trade, it is a pandemic that is hard to stop. Just as there are laws banning it in Sudan, no amount of legislature is going to free those currently bonded if it isn't properly enforced. These sweatshops don't care about an ethical model and that is why there are organization such as the Anti-Slavery International that work to get out to the actual sites and release the imprisoned and put pressure on the government. Yet if we are not one of the fighting forces actively out there, how can we help? The first thing is to do your best to avoid buying anything from these sweatshops, but that can be hard in that it isn't going to be advertised on the label, "Proudly made by the hands of an eight year of slave." So that is why you can also pledge a donation to an organization and help in their volunteer and event ventures. Being aware of just how rampant the childhood slave trade problem is is the first step, and the next is taking action to help end it.