Are We Fair to People Working In Sweatshops?

By Chandpreet K. S.

St. Marguerite d'Youville Secondary School
Brampton

As Canadians, we live in a just society. We can do whatever we want, as long as it is not against the law. No one can take advantage of us.

Because we live in a just society, we are shaped to believe that we have every right that an average citizen in our country does. We think that we are always right and are fair to everyone at all times. We know that there is a lot of unjust happening in the world, but we never bother to respond to it. But we still call ourselves fair, where as the truth is that everyone can be fair to himself or herself, but it is hard to be fair to others. Charles Dickens' quote, "Charity begins at home and justice begins next door," indicates that real justice is done for others. We can only be called fair if we are fair to others, not to ourselves. If we are not fair to others, we should not expect to be treated fairly by others either, as the Bible says, "Do unto others what you would have them do unto you."

We know that there are so many people, in the third world countries, who get much less than what they actually deserve. There are sweatshops going on in these countries and we buy products made in these sweatshops without any hesitation. While buying it, we ignore the fact that it is made in sweatshop. We think that everyone is buying it, so us buy it or not is not going to make that big difference.

Even if we want to do something, people around us discourage us to do so. They make us think that it happens everywhere and our effort will not make any difference, but in reality, everything makes a difference. They ignore the fact that injustice is like fire and if it is not stopped, it spreads out everywhere, as Martin Luther King said, "Justice denied anywhere diminishes justice everywhere." And this fire of injustice can come to our country, which we call a 'just society.'

Being under other people's pressure, we decide not to do any thing. Is this justice to the people living in countries like Cambodia and working in sweatshops? Ignoring their pain is the biggest injustice we can do to them.

We are doing unjust to ourselves, as when we think about the sweatshop, we do not want to buy its products, but we still buy them. We are doing unjust to our faith and religion, as that is not the way God wants us to live. God wants us to love every other person like we love ourselves. We are supposed to stand for right thing, but by buying sweatshop products and not doing anything for people living in injustice, we are denying our duty and betraying our faith.