Hello everyone, Today I read a most disturbing article in the New York Times (July 20, 2004) about women who work in Lesotho (a country in S. Africa) to acquire money to support their families. Unfortunately, like most impoverished countries in this world today, these women only make 70 cents an hour. Therefore, many of them prostitute themselves for food, money to send to the families, money to pay for their rent in Lesotho, and for someone to drive them to and from work. To me, this is aweful, especially because women ages 15-24 are quickly contracting the HIV virus due to their prostituting. Have you heard of this? What do you think? How can we help?

in my state, after much debate, its been decided to close down dance bars, as the government feels that they promote prostitution, when, in reality, nothing of the sort happens! most of the girls working in these dance bars have illegally entered India from Bangladesh. the government has promised to rahabilitate the girls from my state but have ordered the bangladeshi girls to go back to their country...what are these girld supposed to do now? many of these girls are,now, infact, taking to the roads and selling their bodies off to potential clients. in short, prostitution has become rife and these girls are in a greater danger of acquiring STD's than anyone else, now that their bar jobs have been taken away from them! can anything beat that?

I hadn't heard of that and I think it's aweful for women to prostitute in order to live and support their family and in the end dying from HIV or AIDS because of it.

get on freedonation.com and donate for free or thehungersite.com or ecologyfund.com or even care2.com to donate for free giving to organizations does not make people more dependent on them it gives them an opprotunity to break the cycle of poverty and not be taken advantage of. get involved with an organization like freethechildren and help build schools and send vaccines to these people and go by the unicef and world health organization websites to check out what needs to be done and stay informed to make a difference. After all the difference between historys boldest accomplishments and its most dimal failures is often simply the diligent will to persevere. perhaps one day u will be the person people look to for guidance if u never give up god bless.

before the sweatshops came these people weren't saying "why doesn't someone come and exploit us because we wouldn't care as long as they paid us something!" they were probobly just living off the plants that grew around them and hunting and stuff, but when you civilize a place, they can't do that anymore so they need to buy their food and for that they need money. then the sweatshops came. if we left, they could go back to the way they were eventually i think.

I do have to agree that these women live in extreme poverty, but their relative standard of living is probably much higher than many other women in their countries. The cost of living is much less in Africa than in the United States, and even though they are being exploited, they are much better off than those without jobs. Problems such as these will not be alleviated until the west stops using its wealth to protect their own economies. By not embracing free trade, the U.S. and other developed nations cause great disparity. There is only so much wealth to go around, and all most westerners have to do to observe disparity is to take a look at the millions of dollars that have been invested into the infastructure of towns and cities.

we talked about this a lot in my justice and peace class last semester...nike is a great example of this. but anyways there is enough money for the workers to be paid. Those $80 nike shoes do not cost $80 to produce etc. people are getting rich off them and not paying the workers what they deserve (obviously). Its so aggrevating. if countries dont have unions, they are illegal etc, and then get them, the sweat-shop places usually leave. which would sort of be good, but then theres even less work and less money. its one of those vicious cycles. it needs to be fixed from the top- simply to pay them what they deserve. i know what i make in a week is a little more than a family of three in chile (maybe not every family, but a lot of them) makes in a month...its terrible.

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However, without our buisness, these countries would be even more destitute.

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So they shouldn't complain about being abused but instead be thankful for the little amount they get because at least they get something? I sure as hell don't think so.

~Kitty

Honestly, in the most optimistic way I can put it, there's not much you can do. Donations to organizations = dependancy of a country on organizations. The best thing to do if you're really interested in this issue is to take direct action through a job/career or write letters to the government to offer more opportunites and education. It'll be tough for the governement to fulfill this request, but your opinion will sway their decisions economically. You do make a difference!

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countries the US have sweat shops all over teh world and your clothes reflect the poor thirs world countries..

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However, without our buisness, these countries would be even more destitute.

u know what i live ina country where most ppl can't even dream of taps with running water leave alone a bathroom at home..
as for wages, its exploitation to the hilt..countries the US have sweat shops all over teh world and your clothes reflect the poor thirs world countries..
will fill ya in on more later...