Stop Sweatshops in Haiti!
It is widely known that sweatshops are not the best places to work at. On September 11, 2012, a month before the inauguration of the Caracol Industrial Park, 300 workers were trapped in two burning factories. 289 workers were killed in an apparel factory in Karachi, Pakistan and 25 workers in a shoe factory in Lahore. Ali Ahmad, owner of Nazim Textiles in Karachi, Pakistan,“You have ruthless buyers sitting in the U.S. who don’t care what you do, as long as you do it on time… We take a hit every time we’re late. That means lost margins. That means we do what we need to do to make our orders, fast…”
The example above only highlights a small aspect of the injustices that surround sweatshops. Sweatshop workers do not only work in dangerous conditions, they are also paid wages that are too low to support themselves, let alone a family.
Starting October 1, 2012, the Haitian parliament has raised the Haitian minimum wage to 300 Gourdes per day( $6.98 US). With the current rise in food prices and cost of living, there is no way the Haitian people can live off of 300 Gourdes a day. This is only if the factory managers honor this law and not to forget that the foreign companies make millions to billions of dollars.
One of the worst things(there are many) about the development of the Caracol Industrial Park is the fact that local farmers were kicked out of their fertile land to make way for this park. So you take fertile land that the Haitians use to support themselves, their families and their community. So you can use the land to build factories that make millions from exploiting the Haitian people. A perfect example of injustice.
According to Jemima Pierre, of the Black Agenda Report, 229 million US dollars was used to build this park, 124 million came from US taxpayers pocket and the remaining 105 million came from the Inter-Development Bank. The Caracol Industrial Park was inaugurated on October 22, 2012.
This is an example of how much money has been devoted to the Haiti relief effort. As of now only half of the 5.3 billion US dollars donated to the Haiti relief fund has been paid out. Not only that, most of it has been wasted. According to Jonathan Katz,”You know, a lot of money that's spent in the wake of a natural disaster, but especially in the foreign aid context, kind of goes in circles. You're looking at a lot of money literally burned off for jet fuel or spent on hotel rooms for aid workers and officials who are on their way down...if you donated money to and organization that specialized in providing tarps for shelter and bags of rice for people to eat, you know, afterward, people are left with a tarp and an empty bag of rice.” What Mr. Katz is saying is important because it highlights the fact that the decisions that have been made on behalf of the Haitian people have not been in their best interest. This is true because the decisions are ones that might have an immediate effect but in the longterm leave the Haitian people stranded. This is one of the reasons why the development of sweatshops in Haiti must be stopped.