I can't help but wonder if some child in Pakistan is being denied an education because he's forced to work long hours stitching those soccer balls. Bigelow teaches a unit on child labor. He begins by placing a soccer ball in the middle of the classroom and asks students to describe it. Their first attempt is just a bland physical description of the sphere. Suddenly, the ball's country of origin, Pakistan, takes on meaning, and several students write about who may have made the ball, and under what conditions.
Nobody wants to use or wear stuff made in wretched conditions.
This drive, coordinated by two human rights organizations, the National Labor Committee and the People of Faith Network, is not a boycott. This disclosure won't come without a fight. Contractors for huge U.S. retailers often operate secretly in factories without signs, shielded from scrutiny by locked gates and armed security guards. The sad reality is that these codes are weak and poorly enforced. But phone calls have been few from the Bangladesh plant making Wal-Mart shirts, where vendor standards were never posted.