In this blog I am going to try to answer three questions that I have concerning the exploitation of laborers in China. The questions that I have are “why do large-scale exploitation of people start?”, “why is there exploitation of humans in China?”, and “what can we do to stop the companies from exploiting the Chinese laborers?”. In order to answer these questions I had to study the subject and collect facts. To give you the opportunity to form your own theories and draw your own conclusions, I will not only present my answers to these questions, but also the facts that I found.

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China, an Introduction to the Nation

China is one of the largest countries, both in population and surface. Since it is such a huge country it has everything from fertile river valleys and coastal areas in the south east, the east's and inland's highlands and deserts and steppe lands in the northwest. This variety of natural conditions has led to a very differing demography in the various parts of China. In some areas it is very densely populated, like in Beijing and Shanghai, while other areas are uninhabited, still claimed by vast wilderness. That might change though, since the Chinese population is expanding fast. In just half a century the inhabitants of China has more than doubled and today the country's citizens count to 1,3 billion people. About one fifth of the earths population are Chinese. The population boom has led to the one-child policy. China's leader instituted this policy in the beginning of the 1980s. The one-child policy means that you start to loose societal privileges if you have more then one child. But it has not had the desired dramatic effect. The growth does not seem to plane out until 2030 according to some scientists. The population would then have increased to 1,5 billion people. There are also scientist who believe that it will not plane out until 2050 and they estimate that the inhabitants of China will then have grown to 1,6 billion people.

Another big problem in China today is the large number of migrants within the country's own boarders. Most of these people are from rural areas and they migrate from the economically less developed countryside to the cities. Because a lot of people are doing this there is a surplus of workers in relation to the number of employments. Since so many are desperate for a job the workers become expandable in the employers eyes. When the workers know that there are only so many jobs out there and that a lot of people are looking for one, they can put up with almost anything to keep their job for as long as they need it. This makes them vulnerable to exploitation.

There are large economical gaps in the Chinese society. Poverty in rural areas are widespread while some people in the cities have a much higher living standards. The politicians and the authority does not make things better for those living in the countryside. Illegal taxes, corrupt high-seated-party members, rising prices and the local politicians selling of the land that the farmers lease from the state. This makes the situation, mainly in the rural areas but also in the cities, very unstable and insecure. Adding to the insecurity is the Hukou system, a system for household registration. If you are registered in a rural area and move to the city, you lose rights such as education and healthcare.

In conclusion, China is a country which has had a lot of injustices. The nation still have some way to go before it is a well-functioning democracy, but they are moving in the right direction, even though if it is with baby steps.

Exploitation of Human Beings Throughout History In China

To give you a little background and a historical perspective of the problem I have done a study of how widespread exploitation of people have been in China throughout the years of civilization.

In the history of China there is not much records of outright slavery. I believe that this is because the Chinese are the ones that has written down their own history. Ancient China was very isolated from the rest of the world and few, if any outsiders observed and wrote down what they saw of the great empire in the east. Since the Chinese wrote their own history it is not surprising that they left out the unflattering parts of the society, like exploitation of humans and slavery. So how am I to investigate exploitation of people when the records of history has been polished and beautified? I chose to study major events in ancient China, such as the building of the Great Wall of China and the Grand Canal, where there probably were forced labor used. Because of the size of the projects there might be more information surrounding the conditions for the people giving me the chance to draw my own conclusion.

China started to grow into a major civilization about 4000 years ago. The civilization was divided up into states who were constantly fighting each other. One of the states grew stronger than the others. Favorable conditions allowed the Qins to focus on developing new strategies of war. They learned horsemanship from the neighboring horse tribes and became skilled riding warriors, which was something none of the other Chinese states had. Beside the new strategies and the usage of horsemen in war, the Qins also developed a technique which allowed them to mass produce weapons. Since the amounts of weapons often were the factor that decided the size of the army, this new way of production gave the Qins the means to equipping vast numbers of soldiers and thereby get the numerical advantage in war. The Qins conquered state after state, but to continue to be successful in their quest to put all of China under them they needed new ways of quickly producing food to sustain their growing army. In 300 B.C. the Qins created a dam to keep the land from flooding during raining season and to prevent drought in dry season. This made it possible to grow more crops, since the conditions for agriculture were good all year around. The large quantities of food led to a rapid population increase.

In 259 B.C. the Qins got a new leader by the name Ying Zheng. He had united China and became the first emperor. Ying Zheng even changed his name to Shi Huangdi, which means “first emperor”. To protect his new won empire from enemies, Shi Hungdi started to build the Great Wall of China. This project required enormous amounts of labor and with an already stretched economy, forced labor was the easiest solution. At this time there were no machines and therefore everything had to be done by hand. The labor force was built up by three groups which were soldiers, common people, and criminals. Those enrolled in the army could be called to build the wall. When enemies were scarce leaving the army idle, and wall workers were few, it was decided that the army would help with the construction of the wall. Criminals were also sent to the wall and forced to work. The third group consisted of common people, mostly men, but in the end also some boys. They were taken to the wall and ordered to work. Those who tried to run away were killed, sometimes in brutal ways to deter others from following their example. I heard somewhere that they used to burying the offenders alive, but maybe that is just a rumor. Many of the common men and boys never returned home, but worked their entire lives on the wall. Some died of old age, some were killed because of their disobedience, and some died due to the horrible working conditions. It was not only the men and boys who suffered from the forced labor. Indirect the entire society was effected. When the men (and sometimes the boys) were taken away from their families, the situation at home became very difficult. The men were the ones to do most of the physical work and business for the family, and when they were no longer there, the economy of many households failed. After some time, Shi Huangdi started to use forced labor in other projects as well, like for example to the construction of his own grave chambers.

I cannot help but noticing that up until the population boom in China there is not much records of slavery in the empire. I am sure that there were some slaves, but it was not a widespread thing, not something that was integrated into society. After the rapid increase of citizens however you can start to see glimpses of slavery nestling it’s way into acceptance. After the population boom in China there were probably more people in the empire than manageable. I believe that there were too many in each occupational group, meaning that the competition for customers were hard meanwhile the salaries sank. When the profits of honest labor grew smaller and smaller, many must have resorted to other ways of making money, like stealing. Criminal rates therefore went up. In order to solve all of this and at the same time get cheep labor for his huge defensive project, the emperor of China chose to use the surplus of people in both prison and outside of them as forced labor.

Medieval China was a vast empire that stretched over a large area. The trouble with this was the huge distances within the boarders. One big problem was that the Yellow River divided the empire into two and communication between the two sides were difficult. The emperor Yang Di decided to do something about this. He wanted to build a canal across China to connect the empire through water transportation. This canal, the Grand Canal, was a very ambitious project. It took over 5 million workers 6 years to finish this water road that stretched from one end of China to the other. The working conditions for these laborers were horrendous and tens of thousands died of either starvation and fatigue or they were beaten to death by their overseers. Though they were paid, it was not much and hardly seemed worth all their toil. The emperor decided to celebrate the Grand Canal by sailing it in his luxurious boat and as he went along the artificial river, he demanded gifts from all the counties he passed. This, in addition to the emperors throwing away of the excess food while the people was struggling to make a living, angered the working class. The emperor repeated his celebration sailings every year and the rage of the peasants grew stronger. This led to a peasantry rebellion which escalated and after some time, all of the social classes joined in. The emperor was in the end killed by his own generals.

In the 17^th century the concept of Booi Ahas developed. The Manchu leader Nurhaci invaded the Chinese peninsula Liaodong in the beginning of the century. He brought the customs of his people with him to China. Those with a certain amount of grain, Nurhaci gave additional land and houses, while the ones with less were made into slaves or Booi Ahas. Note that this is the first exploited group of people that I have written about that are officially called slaves. Even though they were slaves, Nurhaci encouraged the owners to be caring and loving in their relation to their servants. This was unfortunately ignored in many cases and the slaves did often receive a very harsh treatment and were traded with as if they were stock animals. In the beginning slaves, or Booi Ahas, were mainly something owned by private persons, but when Nurhachi conquered more and more land the number of war prisoners, who were enslaved and made into Booi Ahas, grew. There became a large surplus of slaves. This problem was solved by letting the slaves be owned by the state. The Booi Ahas then went from being almost exclusively households servants to being used as agricultural workers for the state. An interesting thing about the Booi Aha system is that the slaves had their own internal hierarchy among themselves. With the owners permission, a Booi could enslave another Booi and thereby become master himself. The first Booi is still a slave to the owner but he/she also has a slave of his/her own. 

What are Sweatshops?

In our time we do not often call labor with close to no pay as slavery. But just because no one utter the word, slave-like conditions do exist. A sweatshop, for example, is a place where products are produced by workers who labor under slave like condition. They are common where cheap cloth- and textile- productions are.

The definition of what sweatshops are is a little unclear. There is no single definition, but the most common way of explaining what sweatshops are is a working place that violates two or more labor laws. Some of the laws are those against child labor, too long working hours and low salaries.

The employees at these sweatshops are stuck in a vicious circle that is very hard to get out of. They have close to no money, so they are in desperate need of a job. In a country where a lot of people are poor and unemployed, work opportunities are scarce. If they are able to get an employment, they will do almost anything to hang on to that job. These employees put up with dangerous working environments, abuse and low wages. The salaries they earn are sometimes not even enough to cover their expenses and they then end up in dept to their employers. The workers therefore have no chance to save money for the future in order to get a better job and higher living standards. They will have to work inhumanly long days for minimum wage without any hope of ever getting out of the vicious circle. This because there is no other place for them to go in their search for employment.

The products made in sweatshops are many. Among others are shoes, cloths, and textiles.

China is one country that has a lot of sweatshops, especially within the shoe- and cloth- industry. Nike is one of the biggest names in the sport-shoe industry. They are also one of the most criticized companies within the business, because of their extensive use of sweatshops in the production. Nike has because of this, received a lot of attention in the media and from the public, so there is a lot of information about the company. The major sport-shoe maker Nike is therefore a good example if you are to tell how a company use the sweatshops and why.

Nike

The sport-shoe industry has a lot of problem in their production involving exploitation of children and manufacturing in sweatshops. A majority of the athletic shoes are made in Asian sweatshops and a lot of them are produced by children. Nike is one of the companies who has received a tremendous amount of criticism about their production. Information about extremely bad working conditions has been reported and they keep coming in. Their usage of sweatshops in their production is massive and the environment in these is horrible. Workers that produce Nike shoes has reported that they are being both physically and mentally abused.

Nike is a company that, like many others, do not produce their products itself but have contracts with various manufacturers in different parts of the world. Today these manufacturers are mainly located in countries such as China. This is because the nations lack of laws and restriction of how workers are to be treated. When Nike was founded in 1972 the company had their majority of manufacturers in Taiwan and South Korea, but as the workers power grew larger in these countries, they started to develop labor unions and go on strike, Nike moved more and more of their production to other countries, like for example China.

In the 1990s the stories about the inhuman working conditions, use of child labor, physical and mental abuse, and the ridiculously low wages at the Nike production sites started to spread. A lot of human-rights groups reacted to this, among them Education for Justice, Global Exchange, and Students Against Sweatshop Labour. This drew the attention of the media and Nike met heavy critic about their way of production.

With the attention from both media and human-rights activists, the factory workers started to realize their own value and began to protest against the way they were treated, even though demonstrating and things like that are illegal in China. Nike got anxious and began negotiations with the government to ensure that China would keep their laws and restrictions concerning prohibiting the labor unions and limiting the workers freedom of speech. If the salaries was still too high, according to Nike, they would work around the problem by paying an apprentice wages longer than customary and allowed.

Soon the situation escalated and the factory workers no longer cared if it was illegal to raise their voice about the injustices. In April 1997 around 10 000 Indonesian Nike employees went on strike and they led the way for the Chinese. Over the next 3 years, 3000 employees in China joined the striking trend and protested against dangerous working conditions and low wages.

The world started to put a lot of pressure on Nike and the company was forced to do some changes. In 1998, Nike removed all, or at least most, of the petroleum-based chemicals from their production. Then, a year later, in 1999 Nike allowed the wages to be raised in Indonesia. Another important change was that Nike agreed to have random inspections from independent international organizations, such as the Fair Labour Association. Allowance of independent monitoring might be the biggest success for the human-rights activist’s struggle to get Nike on the right track. The company also started their own team of inspectors who monitor the factories and then discuss the conditions with the manager. 2002 Nike formulated the Code of Conduct, which  is rules and standards that are there to regulate the working conditions and safety of the workers at the factories that produce Nike’s products. In 2004, Nike started the Responsibility Report which meant more regulations and increased frequency and width  of monitoring. One could now get full lists of the factories producing Nike products.

Nike has made an effort when it comes to human-rights, but is it enough? According to the Educating for Justice group at least 50% and maybe as much as close to 100% of all the factories that are manufacturers to Nike need more hours per worker than the Code of Conduct allow. They also claim that 25 % to 50% of the factory workers are forced to work 7 days a week. The Educating for Justice group has as well found that some of the employees of the Nike manufacturers are still paid less than the permitted minimum salary. 

Sport-shoe industry

About 30 years ago, there were major changes in the North American and the European shoe industry. The workers started to demand higher wages and better working conditions. They put pressure on the companies by exercising collective bargaining powers, such as going on strike and demonstrating. Since the companies did not want to pay higher wages to their factory workers they moved their factories to countries with a much less advanced economy and with less societal equality. Therefore most of the shoemakers moved their production to Asian countries such as South Korea and Taiwan. It worked for a while and the companies could continue to produce their shoes at a very low cost, but it did not last forever. The problem occurred again. The factory workers in South Korea and Taiwan started to demand higher salaries and better working conditions. This they did like the workers in Europe and North America had done, by forming labor unions and demonstrating. The sport-shoe industry responded by once again moving their production sites.This time the companies relocated to countries with laws against demonstrating and with prohibition against forming of labor unions. The majority of production was moved to China. The gap between the production cost, which was low due to the low labor cost, and the prices for which the shoes could be sold in Europe and North America allowed the sport-shoe companies to do enormous profits.

History repeated itself a third time and the Chinese factory workers started to demand better salaries and working conditions.. Instead of solving the core problem the sport-shoe industry swept it under the rug by negotiating with the Chinese government to make sure that the country continued to have laws prohibiting demonstrations and the forming of labor unions. This, the Chinese government agreed to.

Before the western companies came to China the sport-shoe industry mainly consisted of state-owned companies and therefore all the profit went into the domestic economy. When the western companies came into China and built their factories in the country, the employment provided by the foreign sport-shoe producers put the Chinese ones out of business.

Today, China is the biggest producer of sport shoes in the world. Over one third is made in the country and it is not a coincident. The conditions in China are ideal for a cheep production. There is a high number of unemployed, low salaries and laws which are beneficial if you want to exploit low-cost labor.

Cloth-producing industry

Due to a rapid increase in population, the arrival of foreign factories, and the household system Hukou, there are a lot of people who are forced into an employment with close to no pay. If you compare the sport-shoe industry to the cloth-producing industry, there are many similarities. It is about the same course of development in both businesses. When cloths became to expensive to produce in North America and Europe the companies moved their factories to countries were the labor and manpower were cheaper, for example China. China is a country that have been ideal for cheap production for a long time due to their surplus of worker, low wages and their prohibition of forming labor unions. As in the sport-shoe industry, the companies in the cloth-producing industry negotiated with China to make sure that these favorable conditions would remain. This has, as I mentioned, created an ideal environment for the companies, but it is at the same time devastating for the workers.

When the poor people in the countryside search their way into the cities it is not often that their hopes and dreams about getting a well-paid job come true. Most of the people coming from rural areas are women. These women do on average get 1,690 CNY (≈ 208€ or 273$) in monthly salary, and that is including overtime. For less then a tenth of a normal western salary, these people are working extremely long days, they work seven days a week , they get an average of 4 hours of sleep each day, the environment at their place of employment are in many cases dangerous and they face constant discrimination and abuse. On top of this, few of the women can afford a descant place to live, so they have to share a cramped little dormitory with several other women. Also worth to mention is that few if any of the women get maternity leave if they have a child during their employment, so they have to send their babies to their family back home.

The number of injuries, diseases and even cases of deaths at the working place is alarmingly high. In China there are not many laws controlling the environment in which the employees work in and those that do exist are often disregarded if there is profit in doing so. Just in the year of 2009, about 1,000,000 workers in China were injured at the place of their employment and approximately 20,000 suffered significant decline in health due to a dangerous working environment. The group that is most exposed to dangers at their working place in the cloth-producing industry is the textile workers. There are so many harmful chemicals used in the dying and preparing of fabrics that the majority of the workers suffer from some defect. The method that is used to give denim its worn look is called sandblasting and is extremely harmful to the workers. In this process the textile workers are exposed to silica-dust particles that effects the respiratory system. This can lead to the disease Silicosis that is fatal if no treatment is given. Despite that this method has been banned by the EC since 1966, it is still used today. These health problems caused by the dangerous working environment are devastating for the employees. Since most of the textile workers are people who have migrated from the countryside to the cities in the search of an employment, the Hukou system tells that they have no right to such things as healthcare and education. Without healthcare, most of the people working at the textile factories develop some kind of medical condition and without education they have no chance of ever getting another employment that can provide a higher salary and bring them out of poverty.

There are several organizations that have taken up the battle for the rights of the cloth-production workers, since the government of China has done nothing about this. War on Want, Workers Empowerment and Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour have started working with empowering the migrant workers in the Guangdong province. This is done by educating the employees in the cloth-producing industry about their rights. It is first when the workers realize their value that they can start to fight for their own rights and this is what the organizations are focusing on. They are raising awareness among the laborers.

Why do large-scale exploitation of people start?

Societies where large-scale exploitation occurs usually has some factors in common. I have noticed that when there are three factors especially. One, a large number of people that are unemployed and desperate for a job. Two, when there is a demand for huge amounts of cheap labor and three, when the poor and desperate population got no or close to no education. If you have all these factors in the same place at the same time you are most likely to find large-scale exploitation of humans there too.

When people are unemployed and their family is starving, they are of course desperate for a job, any job. They will take almost any employment, no matter what the salary is, because making a little money is better than making non. If the ones hiring workers knows this, that there are a surplus of workers and that they are desperate enough to settle for virtually any wage, the employers can start to exploit the workers and make huge profits for themselves. The labor force becomes expandable to factories. If they fire one of their workers there is another laborer there to take the dismissed person's place. When the workers know that they are seen as expendable they will agree to almost anything in order not to lose their job. The salary, work assignments, work conditions and work hours are shaped after the employers wishes and needs without no thought what so ever of the needs and wants of the laborer. Most workers even accept abuse. In places where the population has increased rapidly during a relatively short period of time, there is often a surplus of workers in need of an employment, and a shortage of jobs.

In history, almost every time when there has been a huge project that has required a large amount laborers, there has been exploitation of humans involved. Everything from the pyramids and the Great Wall of China to today's cloth- and shoe-production has used and exploited humans. I think that the cheap labor starts out as a requirement to be able to do the project at all. Then when the project leaders has a functioning system, the costs of starting up has been payed and the project has started to give a winning, and they could pay their workers a decant amount in wage, the necessity to pay their laborers less is no more a necessity, but a greedy act. They want the money for themselves. But it is not the money itself that is desirable, it is the power that comes with it. Money is nothing in itself. It is treasured because we use money as a measurement of power. If you were on a deserted island and had a million dollar in cash, it would not be worth more to you then the material of which it was made. So, power is the thing that people want. That is why employers do not pay their workers more even though they might have the money to spare. The employers do not want to give the workers more money, because giving them more money means giving them more power. The employers do not want their employees to have that. The more power the laborers get the less the employers have and the reverse, and unless someone or something empower the workers to seize the power for themselves they will not get any higher in the hierarchy. Some believe that to suppress others raises you above them.

When the exploited workers do not have an education, they also have no idea of their own rights. They do not know of anything better. How are these laborers to be aware of that they have the right to a certain amount of money, to breaks and to some standards of working conditions? Most important, how are they to effect the injustices that they experience, when they have never heard about such a thing as a labor unions? It is hard to hope and work for a change when you have no idea that things can be different and that they are in other places. Another thing is that I think many exploited workers do not think that they deserve a change. They might be so deluded that they think that they deserve the treatment received. These workers often come from a background of poverty. It cannot be easy to build up a strong sense of self esteem, when everything around tells you that you are on the lowest step in the ladder of society. When they get a job they are told that they should be grateful, since a lot of other people do not have the same opportunity. Here there must be some conflicting feelings and a chance for additional self doubt. People and the society are saying to you to be appreciative for the employment, but who in the world could always stay grateful and happy about a job that means hard labor, low wage and most likely abuse from your supervisors. If you are not able to always feel grateful, you must feel like an unappreciative person, like a bad person. Adding further to your sense of worthlessness, is your supervisor that comes around while your working and tell you how bad you are at what you are doing. It feels like a lot of people think that “why do not these exploited humans just take action and fight for their right? If everyone did it they would be rid of this problem”. Well, it is not that simple. This environment that exploitation exist in is, like I have mentioned, is ideal for exploitation. It is not just the fact that the surplus of workers give the employers the opportunity to exploit them, but also that the environment that the laborers live and work in, continuously breaks down their confidence and self esteem. It is not likely that you will fight for something that you do not think you deserve.

We who consume the products made by these exploited people do not often care enough to make a change in the production. I think that even though a lot of western people know what is going on in the bottom of the production line, we have hard to really understand. It is difficult relating to people who live on the other side of the world. The problem is so far away and therefore we can easily close or eyes and pretend that it is not there. Our mind is good at protecting itself from things that we find uncomfortable and hard. It suppresses the problem with the suffering people on the other side of the world, who are laboring hard so we can buy cheap clothes. It becomes someone else's issue. Out of sight and out of mind. 

Why is there exploitation of humans in China?

China has all the factors that I wrote about in the “Why do large-scale exploitation of people start?” section. There is a large number of Chinese people that are unemployed, poor and desperate for a job. There is a huge demand for cheap labor with in the cloth- and sport-shoe industry. The majority of the exploited people are relatively uneducated. All the pieces are there and together they create a rather disturbing picture.

In just half a century the inhabitants of China has more than doubled and today the country's citizens count to 1,3 billion people. The trend is not turning, but rather just continuing. China's population is still increasing. This rapid population boom has created a large group of poor people that are desperate for a job. Most of these people are from rural areas and they migrate from the economically less developed countryside to the cities. Due to the Hukou system, a lot of problems occur when you move from some Chinese rural area to a city, or the other way around. If you are written in a rural area, you only have access to social rights such as healthcare and education in rural ares and if you are written in a city you only get your rights in a city. When people migrate they lose their right to these fundamental services. This system really benefits the constructions of exploitation since it deprives the people who move of their rights to medical care and education. If one of these migrants get sick they will receive no help from the state and they will have to spend the little amount of money that they earn on medicine and hospital bills. The factories in China are good at putting their employees in dept too. This they do because they do not want to have to employ new workers all the time, because the old workers resign once they have earned enough money. Educating someone in how to do the work cost more money then if you have workers who already know how to do things, and it is therefor cheaper to find a way to make the workers stay on for as long as possible. The easiest way is to put the laborers in debt, because they cannot go anywhere if they do not have the money. The factories are charging their workers for the food, for the accommodation, for each minute they are missing from work and the factories often keep the workers first payment, this in order to put the laborers in debt right from the start. If the laborers had the option I believe that most of them would leave the factory, but as long as they do not have any money they do not have much of a choice. They need the little they earn to survive and for their families survival. The laborers cannot afford to miss even one paycheck, because they are already living on so little. If you want to go out to look for a new job you will need some source money, and if you have no one to help you you will require savings. When you are using up every bit of your wage in order to keep yourself and your family alive and sometimes even end up in dept to your employer you will not be able to put away money for the future. So, the environment that the poor Chinese laborers live in is shaping them into being the perfect victims to the exploitation of factories and the factories know what they need to do to keep them as their workers.

When all companies are demanding low prices on goods it does not matter if one factory want to treat their workers right, they alone cannot change anything. If they wish to compete with the other factories they cannot pay their workers to much, since increasing the salaries raises the production cost. It will cost a lot more to produce the goods, while the companies are still going to give very low prices for the products. If the factory owner pays the workers more, the factory will make less profit and the winnings are slim to begin with. If there is going to be a change I do not think that it is up to the factory owners. Sure, the factory owners could go together and form a united front against the companies and demand higher prices for their goods, but why would they? The factory owners are making some money as it is and that they would risk what they have got for the sake of their workers, is highly unlikely. I believe that the change must come from the companies. The problem is how you are to get the companies to want to alter. They are the ones making the biggest profit in all this. The disturbing thing is that the companies do not seem to care about their workers at all. For example, the companies send supervisors to the factories and their official duty is to scrutinize if the factories fulfill the demands and standards of conditions for the workers. That appear to be an attempt to ensure the laborers their rights. However, in interviews done with workers and mangers of the factories, many of them have said that the supervisors do not really care about the wages and working conditions, but they are rather there to check up on the quality of the products. The companies are most concerned about the money, that is the cold hard truth.

The poor people in China often have a quite low quality of education if they have any. In the education received I have it hard to believe that workers rights and the politics surrounding business and economy are a part of it. It is hard to know something that you have never been thought. As I wrote before, “How are they to effect the injustices that they experience, when they have never heard about such a thing as a labor unions? It is hard to hope and work for a change when you have no idea that things can be different and that they are in other places.” The thing about labor unions in China is that they are illegal, as are demonstrations of any sort. If the poor laborers have even heard about labor unions and strikes, they surely heard that they are considered to be a crime too. People usually trusts in what the state tells them and many therefore confuse laws with morality. Just because something is illegal and wrong in the judicial sense, it does not have to mean that it is morally incorrect, just as something that is legal can be highly unethical. For example, starting a labor union and going on strike is punishable by law, but if you want to exploit human beings for your own winning there are more than enough loopholes in the legislation for that. Following the law and being morally correct does not have to be the same thing, neither does being seen as a criminal and being morally incorrect. But why do the Chinese state allow the factories to exploit their workers and even worse, why do they prohibit the laborers to take action against this? I believe that the reason is money and power. If the conditions were not as favorable as they are for the companies in China, they might move their factories somewhere else and that would mean less business for the nation. The Chinese leaders have therefore negotiated with companies to ensure them that their factories and the conditions there will remain as they are. The state does this directly by making worker-empowering action such as the forming of labor unions and demonstrations, illegal, but they are also do it indirectly by keeping their population uneducated about worker's right and international standards of work-place environment.

What can we do to stop the companies from exploiting the Chinese laborers?

Well, to solve the problem with the exploitation of Chinese laborers, you must first look at what is creating the issue and then try to work out what can be done about that. In my text Why is there exploitation of humans in China? I have found three major problems that I believe to be the ones causing the situation in China. The first problem is that there is a large part of the Chinese population that are poor and they cannot get out of poverty because of the Hukou system and the factories attempts to put them in debt. The second problem is that the companies do not care about their Chinese workers or anything else but money. Lastly there is the issue with the lack of education in workers rights and international standards. So, to attack the issue with the exploitation of Chinese laborers, you must first try to solve these sub problems.

In order to sort this situation out, I believe that you need to get the Chinese workers out of debt. Starting with the factories systematic way of putting their workers in debt. When the workers are in debt, they have no chance of putting away money for the future and therefore they have no opportunity of getting out of the viscous circle of exploitation. I think that the solution to this is to make it harder for the factories to find loopholes that make it possible for them to fine their workers. You must legislate laws that make it illegal for the factories to fine their workers for the time they are missing from work. Sure, the workers are not entitled to their pay if they do not work, but they should not have to pay additional money to the factory for each minute that they are missing. Neither should it be allowed for the factories to keep the first payment of a worker. I have a hard time believing that this could be legal in China, but the problem is not that the authorities are unaware of the problem. The issue is that they know about this and they chose to do nothing. The authorities probably also know that the taking of the first payment is a crucial part of putting the workers in dept and thereby keeping the system of exploitation running. The state has done nothing about it because they want the exploitation to continue. The cheap labor is what is giving China so much business. Therefore I do not believe that this will be solved by informing the Chinese state of the problem, because everyone involved in this already knows about it. My solution would be to make those who are not involved aware of the problem. Revealing this to other countries and to human-rights organizations so that they can put pressure on China to scrutinize the factories and make sure that they follow the laws. The problem with this is that countries and organizations must already be aware of this. How could they not if I know this? What they might not see though, is the connection between the taking of the first payment and the continuing of the exploitation in China. Emphasizing that this is one of the key factors in all this might be what has to be done.

The second thing concerning the debt problem is the Hukou system. Due to this system, the workers get even more indebted. The poor people in the country side must move in order to have any chance of finding an employment. Most of the jobs are in the cities, but if they move there, they lose their rights to medical care and education. Free medical care is important, because if you get sick and you have no free healthcare you will have to pay medicine and hospital bills with your own money. We all get sick sometimes, so these expenses are basically inevitable. Additional expenses are not what the laborers need! The other problem with the Hukou system is that when you move you also lose your right to education. Education usually leads to a better job and the chance to make a career. When you lose the right to free education and you have very little money, studies are not what you normally prioritize. With no further education the possibility of you getting a well paid job and getting out of poverty is not likely. Therefore, in order to help the laborers not to attract debts, the Hukou system should be abolished. I think that the initial purpose with the Hukou system was to stop some of the urbanization, but today it serves as a system to put the workers in debt too. That is why it is not terminated even though it is very damaging for the rights of factory workers. The thing to do here is to inform countries and organizations about this and make the world put pressure on the Chinese state to abolish the Hukuo system. Though, I have a hard time believing that enough countries and organizations would care to make China change. Another solution could then be to lend money to these laborers, to start up a little bank for the poor. Organizations interested in helping could lend out enough money for the laborers to get an education or to pay of debts.

In order to solve the problem of the exploitation the issue of the companies' capitalism must be tackled. The companies care most about profits, sad but true. This is one of the factors that contribute to the exploitation problem. If money is all the companies care about, you must make profits the factor that will bring on the change. How can you do economical sanctions against the companies? If media starts to pay a lot of attention to the issue of the exploitation, maybe the rest of the world would react and put pressure on the companies. But then again, media has already payed attention to the exploitation of humans, and thing has not changed more then a little. I do not think that people care all that much about what is said in the media. You always hear of disasters and injustices in the news. One more bad piece of news gets forgotten and overlooked because it does not stand out. The media is therefore not the answer, we need to get the information out in ways that gets to people. If we were to do a project where we involved writers and movie makers, that might be the answer. I believe that when people get emotionally connected to things, they are more keen to get involved. Movies and book are all about getting people emotionally involved in a story. I believe that this would benefit both the exploited workers, since they would get attention from the world and hopefully help with that, and the writers, because people care more for stories who are based on truth. With the attention gained, the companies would have to do something about their production to get consumers to continue to buy their products. Bad publicity for a major company can be devastating and severely lower the sale rate. If the companies do not take action to improve the workers' conditions and show the world the betterment people will stop buying what they sell and they will lose all they have. They need to care about their workers in order to not go bankrupt.

The third problem that I believe that we need to solve, is the one about education. Uneducated do not have the same chance of making a career as well-read people. But how are we to get China to work harder for their people to receive an education? As things are right now, the state is benefiting from people having little education. The answer is to remove the factor that is making it beneficial for China to have no education and thereby an abundance of cheap labor, which is the demand for it. Changing the way that the companies and we consumers think, so that we no longer want masses of cheap products is a hard thing to do. What might be easier to do is to upgrade the Chinese way of production. We could give China a better alternative to exploiting humans. The thing I am thinking of is to start up projects to help China develop their use of industrial machines. One part of it might even be to donate machines to the Chinese factories. This will of course deprive a lot of the factory workers of their job, but that might not be a bad thing. Those who do get to remain as staff in the factories will probably get much more in wage, since they are less workers there but they still have the same production rate. The ones who become unemployed will probably move back home where they are entitled to free education. With no jobs at hand, the only thing there is to do is study. Once you are educated you will be able to take employments that you were not able to before your studies. Also, the jobs you can get, thanks to an education, is almost always better paid then those employments who do not require a scholar background. The ones who have a job will have a much better economical situation and if one group in today's society get better standards of living other groups tend to follow. Since those who have a job have more money than before, they will spend more than before. If people spend more money, the people that they are purchasing services and goods from get a higher income. When these merchants get wealthier they will in turn start to buy more, and so on, and so on... Of course this is not a radical process that will happen over a night. It is not like the introduction of industrial machines into the Chinese factories is going to fix every ones economical situation in the blink of an eye. It will take some time. One thing that might speed things up a bit is the possible abolition of the Hukuo system. When people no longer migrate to the cities in masses, the need for the Hukuo system might not longer be necessary. If the people no longer have to move to the cities to work at the factories the increase in urbanization will level out. The point of the Hukuo system is to slow down the migration into cities and since it has already decelerate, you could get rid of it. This will create security for the entire nation, and I am sure that the number of employments required within the medical- and education-sector will increase, once everyone has access to free healthcare and education. When the level of education and the standard of living get higher in a nation, the nativity rate often go down.

I believe that in order for China to develop, things must get worse before the can get better. The unemployment will first rise, due to the introduction of the industrial machines, and a lot of people will be desperate for a job. Poverty and economical depression will expand. The employments that do exist requires an education and these unemployed people will therefore have to study in order to be hired. Once they have received an education they are entitled to jobs with much higher salaries then before and they will have a much better situation economically. When they have money they can afford birth-control pills and other protecting supplements preventing a pregnancy. The nativity rate in China will start to go down and so will the population increase. In the main time, the people with higher wages starts to purchase more and more, thus simulating the national economy and thereby generating more jobs. So as the population decreases, the number of employments increases.

There really is no simple solution to the problem with the exploitation of factory workers in China. For there to be a change there must be a conjoint effort from the Chinese government, other countries, organization and the exploited workers themselves. These solutions that I have given is just that, my solutions, or rather my theories about what will lead to the solving of the problem. Others might come to different conclusions. But I think we can all agree that the most important thing, if there is going to be a change, is that there has to be the will to make alterations. The Chinese government, the other countries, the organization and the exploited workers must want to make a change and we, the world, have to help them.