Farm Subsidy Voters League

If you haven’t already done so, please take a moment to sign the Cotton Crimes petition today. It will only take seconds of your life to speak for these children living in actual slavery. We aren’t talking sweatshops—which is bad enough—but actual unpaid work by children, some of them as young as nine. I know nine-year-olds who don’t even have chores; could you imagine any nine-year-olds you know being forced to labor in fields at their age, and for no pay?

In this case, it’s in Uzbekistan, where kids are forced to pick cotton rather than attend school. Some whole schools are even shut down, and the kids are threatened or even physically punished if they don’t meet a daily quota of cotton. Some are beaten. Most are threatened with poor grades. Can you imagine? Most work until they are utterly exhausted—and most are also malnourished, having gone so many hours without eating as they pick cotton for garments sold in our own country. I don’t know for sure which companies use their cotton, but seeing as they are the third largest producer of cotton in the world, odds are that we’ve all purchased something that started at the hands of a third-grader forced to do this grueling labor. The European market, however, is known to use the cotton most—and even though the European Union officially condemns child labor, they continue to allow Uzbekistan smaller tariffs for their cotton while knowing that much of it comes from the hands of children.

Please sign on to this petition, imploring the EU to at the very least stop reducing the tariff amounts that Uzbekistan is charged for their cotton. The entire country’s cotton, of course, should be boycotted until this practice ceases—but stopping the discounts that it currently receives to export its slave labor-produced goods is a good first start. The petition also calls for the EU to stop using Uzbekistan as its preferred cotton provider while the child labor continues.

You know what? I’m not even against all forms of child labor. As John Taylor Gatto maintains, it can be a good learning experience if you, say, let a twelve-year-old shadow your job if he or she is passionate about it, or to let a child become an entrepreneur with his or her own Etsy shop or lemonade stand. But in these cases, children have choices, make money, and are protected by their parents. Child labor done through slavery, however, is abominable, and should be stopped at all costs.