Mickey Mouse goes to Haiti
Last semester (Spring 2007), I took a political science class about the politics of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. During one of these classes I watched a short documentary that was filmed in 1996 entitled "Mickey Mouse goes to Haiti". The film was about 20,000 Haitians who are employed as contract garment workers for US corporations and Disney corporation is one of them. In this film, several workers came forward and risked being beaten and/or fired, so that they could be given the opportunity to ask Disney to pay a livable wage and to describe their inhumane living and working conditions. At the time of filming, they were being paid 28 cents per hour to create the garments that Disney sells in the United States.
I have had people tell me that these poor people don't have to put up with this kind of treatment and that they can always just leave and go somewhere else and that they can always exploit the black market to get ahead. I have just one word for that kind of thinking. Bullshit! The amount of money they are being paid is not enough to even feed themselves much less build shelter. Where can they go? How are they supposed to get there? What black market? What are they supposed to sell and who is supposed to buy it? The sewage system is a stream of raw sewage that runs through their communities. They live in shacks constructed of whatever materials they can find to provide shade from the blazing haitian sun.
The exploitation of 3rd world countries as a cheap source of human resources is unforgivable and simply unbelievable in this day and age. We call ourselves civilized and yet we allow this most inhumane form of exploitation in the name of money? I'm sorry but this kind of behavior is not civilized and it is not excusable. It is sick and anyone who could justify this has some serious issues. If this is what you call civilization, I want no part of it. Boycott Disney and any other corporation that exploits the 3rd world.