Raquel Gan

I managed to do a commentary for youth.sg on world poverty, http://www.youth.sg/content/view/7556/59/, please have a look. However, a friend told me it looked heavily edited, yes it is. There is this lot I would like to post on my blog, because i find it simpler and easier to understand:

‘Made in China’ is a very common tag we find on our clothes, shoes or bags’ tags. I remember owning a Nike shoes that says ‘Made in Indonesia’ while some may have a ‘Made in Thailand’, ‘Made in Vietnam’, ‘Made in Pakistan’ or ‘Made in Philippines’.   It is widely known that this ‘Made in Somewhere’ tag represents where the goods were produced at. Hence, Nike, a United States product is made in so many corner of the world except for United States itself. Those production countries all share a same feature; they are termed as developing countries or ‘Third World’.  Hence, it explained why Nike would set up their factories there; so to utilise the widely available cheap labour. However, the whole process for Nike to produce sufficient products to cater to the developed countries’ population (like us) is worsening the developing countries’ population living condition. First, to produce the colourful Nike Air-Jordon Shoes, raw materials are needed and usually extracted from the same country of production. Hence, the production countries are depleting more and more of their natural resources which is both wealth and environmental asset. Second, factories processed the raw materials and produced harmful chemicals that are released into the air or river in the production countries. Hence, the population in these production countries can easily contact with diseases if they use the river water.  Finally, in economic terms, Nike would want to maximize profits and would do all means to keep production costs low. Hence, child labours are employed or maybe just violate the minimum wages level. If we zoom our lenses out to examine this process and asked ourselves ‘where do the money flow to?’, the answer is United States. Although jobs are created in the developing countries, their natural resources are extracted, polluted and their pay exploited. Hence, if we continue to satisfy our luxury wants, it create a demand and Nike would increase production or source for an upcoming ‘cheap’ country to start another production site. The poor will be left poorer.

I hope you see the whole picture now. and I need to say this again to you and myself,

this logo or that logo on your t-shirt, laptop, and so forth all share a corporate story that they didnt want you to know. Hence, its up to you and I to recognise and do something about it.