Sweatshops and Human Trafficking

Lots of interesting things came out of studying human trafficking in my international econ class. For one thing, women in Latin America sometimes get tricked into going with traffickers because the trafficker promises them a job in a sweatshop. Apparently women sometimes know that the sweatshop job may not be real, but the women risk it anyway.


This makes sweatshops sound really bad. Not only do they pay low wages, but the existence of sweatshops helps traffickers trick women.


Of course, a different way to look at this is to realize that people's lives are so bad in some developing countries that they will risk being trafficked for a sweatshop job. The sweatshop is a something that can really change someone's life.


In this interpretation the sweatshop job is a really good thing. If only we had more of them.