ST. TERESA OF AVILA PARISH
PEACE AND
JUSTICE
RAISING AWARENESS
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SWEATSHOPS
Did you know?...Most
U.S.corporations and retail businesses rely on factories in developing
countries to supply their products and merchandise. High unemployment keeps labor
cheap in
these countries. People desperate for jobs are willing to accept the abusive working
conditions found in sweatshops. (United Church of Christ Justice and Peace
Ministry)
Average per hour wages of sweatshop laborers: China - 13 cents, Mexico - 54 cents,
Vietnam - 20 cents, Burma - 6 cents, Honduras - 31 cents, Nicaragua - 20 cents,
Haiti- 28 cents, El Salvador- 56 cents, Guatemala - 37 cents and
Indonesia - 27 cents. (National Labor Committee)
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Did you know?... U.S.
companies imported $ 8.7 billion of apparel made in China and
Hong Kong, $ 6.4 billion in footwear and over $ 8 billion in toys and sporting
goods. Reports indicate that wages and benefits in China are being slashed to a low
of 13 cents an hour with excessive overtime hours - up to 96 hours per week- shifts
of more than 14 hours per day are being imposed.
(Source: National Labor Committee)
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As Christians, we must face
the uncomfortable truth that peace is not merely
the lack of conflict. For all those who use the abstract idea of peace to escape
from the harsh reality of injustice, there are active peacemakers who use it to
rattle the bars of enslaving complacency.
( Forward to Peace Prayers by Clayton E. Carlson )
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We should never forget that
everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was
"legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did was
"illegal".
( Martin Luther King, Jr. )
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Did you know that in
Nicaragua some of America's biggest stores and most
popular clothing brand names employ sweatshops that pay a base wage
of 10 cents an hour? The average wage is 31 cents an hour. That comes out to
$ 14.88/week. The basic weekly expenses for many workers totals
$ 22.41/week. This doesn't include food, hygiene supplies, etc.
These facts come from the National Labor Committee - www. nlcnet.org
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If we could shrinks Earth's
population to a village of precisely
100 people, with all existing human ratios remaining the same,
it would look like this:
There would be 57 Asians, 21
Europeans, 14 from the Western
Hemisphere (North and South) and 8 Africans
51 would be female, 49 would be male
70 would be non-white, 30 white
70 would be non-Christian, 30 Christian
50% of the entire world's wealth would be in the hands of only 6
people and all 6 would be citizens of the United States
80 would be living in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
1 would be near death
1 would be near birth
Only 1 would have a college education
No one would own a computer
When one considers our world from such an incredibly compressed
perspective, the need for both tolerance and understanding
becomes glaringly apparent.
(This summary originally appeared in July 1998, IX No. 2, issue of
The Pilgrim: Contact Paper of the Franciscan Conferences of Asia and Oceania)
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U.S. ARMS SALES: SOME FACTS AND FIGURES
Since the end of the Cold
War, the U.S. has sold weapons
to over 160 of the world's approximately 190 nations.
In the last decade, the
U.S. provided weapons to 39 of the 42
nations engaged in armed conflict.
Weapon sales in 1997
Brazil: $ 217 million
Columbia: $ 114 million
Guatemala: $ 14.9 million
Mexico: $ 49.8 million
Every year, U.S. taxpayers
foot the bill for $ 7 billion in subsidies
to weapons manufacturers - over half of the cost of the weapons!
(from Peace Action, 202-862-9740)