The importance of educating girls was never clearer than yesterday when we visited the street outside a garment factory at lunch time. Walking inside the apartment they rent was like entering a prison, the air was heavy with the stench of hopelessness and the kids and families inside sat in the filthy dark concrete hallway with only the glow of one tv to illuminate the gloom. Many of the girls aren't old enough to work but they pay government workers to make them fake id's. They make only 55 dollars a month and pay $40 or more to rent a room shared by 4-6 people, never seeing an opportunity to change their fortune. The factory is also windowless and they work behind a prison like gate, only coming out for lunch. When they start earning enough to get close to earning the benefits of higher wages they are fired or the entire factory will shut down and move location. Out of all the women living in this building the longest one had been working for the factory down the road was 4 years. This is what misery looks like -a far cry from the fancy malls where the clothes end up in Abercrombie stores and the Gap- here the despair is tangible and as Westerners who buy the clothes, we are a party to the horror unless we do something. I left the apartment in tears, the image of a mother watching her sleeping baby of the filthy floor of the dismal trash strewn street painted in my mind forever.
No comments:
Post a Comment