Helpful Links

Helpful links:

• Change.org - This site is a good resource for articles covering global health, fair trade, corporate social responsibility and global poverty. " There are millions of people who care passionately about working for change but lack the information and opportunities necessary to translate their interest into effective action. Change.org aims to address this need by serving as the central platform informing and empowering movements for social change around the most important issues of our time."
• Engadget.com - Although this site does not directly deal with issues involving sweatshops, it has however given me insight into some of my most recent posts centering around tech sweatshops and apple.
• YoungerWorld.org - This is Adam Fletcher's youth social activism blog. It gives great insight into this area and offers ways in which today's youth (far and near) can work together to bring social change.
  
• Suite101.com - Their tag line is "Insightful writers. Informed readers." This site offers a wide range of articles focusing on social activism, politics and society. A good starting point when looking for topical articles due to the large number of topics and contributing writers.
• Child Rights Information Network - CRIN has built a global network for children's rights. They press for rights, not charity, and advocate for a genuine systemic shift in how governments and societies view children.
• Human Rights Watch - One of the world’s leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, HRW gives voice to the oppressed and holds oppressors accountable for their crimes.
• AntiSlavery.org - Anti-Slavery International works at local, national and international levels to eliminate all forms of slavery around the world.
• GlobalMarch.org - The Global March Against Child Labor is a movement to mobilize worldwide efforts to protect and promote the rights of all children, especially the right to receive a free, meaningful education and to be free from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be harmful to the child's physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.
• Child Labor Coalition - The CLC exists to serve as a national network for the exchange of information about child labor; provide a forum and a unified voice on protecting working minors and ending child labor exploitation; and develop informational and educational outreach to the public and private sectors to combat child labor abuses and promote progressive initiatives and legislation.
• National Consumers League - The mission of the National Consumers League is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. The National Consumers League is a private, nonprofit advocacy group representing consumers on marketplace and workplace issues.
• TakePart.com - TP is an independent online community that connects its members directly to the issues that inspire them to engage, contribute and take action.
• LaborRights.com - ILRF is an advocacy organization dedicated to achieving just and humane treatment for workers worldwide. ILRF serves a unique role among human rights organizations as advocates for and with working poor around the world.
• Worker Rights Consortium - WRC is an independent labor rights monitoring organization, conducting investigations of working conditions in factories around the globe. The WRC conducts independent, in-depth investigations; issues public reports on factories producing for major U.S. brands; and aids workers at these factories in their efforts to end labor abuses and defend their workplace rights.
• NoSweat Clothing - The 1st of the sweatshop free clothing companies & currently last, in terms of revenue. They produce their gear at union & worker owned factories in the US, Canada, Argentina, South Africa & Bethlehem, Palestine.
• Justice Clothing - Justice Clothing's mission is to support democratic principles, workers' rights and economic sustainability through the sale and distribution of goods manufactured by workers protected by collective bargaining agreements.

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Gold Farming

In this new digital age a real price has been put on virtual coin.With the rise in popularity of Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) video and computer games a new type of sweatshop has evolved called gold-mining. In gold-mining sweatshops workers sit for up to 10 hours straight playing MMO's collecting in-game gold and coins which are then sold for real money. These facilities are very similar to those of the "classic" sweatshop we are used to seeing, in that they are very run down, cramped, and the workers are subjected to little to no wages, harassment, and the the withholding of their rights.

According to an article in International Herald Tribune, there are now roughly 100,000 young people working in factories in China, working 12 hour shifts, earning roughly $250 a month playing MMORPGs focused purely on leveling up characters. Some might be playing purely to earn gold which is then sold in the real world for online gamers to buy better items whilst others will be logged in as another player’s character, ‘buffing’ up that character’s stats, level and abilities.

Many of these workers are employed by larger companies from the United States. One of the largest names in online gaming products is Gamersloot.net, a company which sells gold and other items for MMO's such as World of Warcraft, EverQuest, and dozens of others. Because of the driving demand for these products in the US and other Western countries companies like Gamersloot.net have exploited the "cheap" labor which is available in China. Although the products produced through gold-mining make up a relatively small amount of the online gaming products sold, this is just another example of the subjugation of others for our profit and happiness.

"'What we're seeing here is the emergence of virtual currencies and virtual economies,' said Peter Ludlow, a longtime gamer and a professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. 'People are making real money here, so these games are becoming like real economies.'"

In this sense, as a society, we have not only taken over the real world with capitalism and slavery, but now we are moving towards the online world as well. Although this can also be argued to have already happened with the emergence of online advertising but I feel in this sense we would be controlling peoples lives and actions through the playing of these games.

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