Who’s pleasure, whose pain?

Yo-Yo’s, Pokémon and Power Rangers was all I thought about when I was in school. Now we have iPhones, X-factor and Miley Cyrus!

Last year it was lunch boxes, shoes and clothes all branded with High School Musical. It seems every time a new craze surfaces it takes a hold of us and we have to own everything it has its name on. Every time we own something from the franchise we get a rush of joy. Taking into account the pleasure/pain theory that for all our pleasure someone is suffering we should ask ourselves who is suffering for it?

Could it be the parents who have to fund what becomes an expensive obsession? I think you’ll find that we need to go deeper to find where the pain is. You can start by asking yourself where your jeans come from? Do they say “made in India? China? Or Bangladesh?” Then ask yourself “How old was the person that made this?”

The average 12 year old here in the UK often has one of the things mentioned above on his or her mind but an average 12 year old in India will have other things on his or her mind. 11.2 million Young people aged between 5 and 14 are working in India. India has the largest number of child workers in the world. They are employed in many industries and trades, including garments, footwear, and textile shops.

In a report by The Sweat and Toil of Children (Volume I): The Use of Child Labor in U.S. Manufactured and Mined Imports they found that young people in India were more likely to work in small subcontracting shops or in homes. Young people were also found to be imprisoned in the shops with armed guards preventing entrance and exit during work hours. The report found it was the norm to have children working on tasks such as sewing buttons, cutting and trimming threads, folding, moving and packing garments. They work long hours six or seven days a week. Some were not paid for overtime work.

If we are given t-shirt’s to wear then they shouldn’t be given t-shirts to make!