Are Sweatshops Helping or Abusing the Rights of the Employer?

A sweatshop is a working environment with very difficult or dangerous conditions, usually where workers have few rights or no say in addressing their situation. This can include exposure to harmful materials, hazardous situations, extreme temperatures, or abuse from employers. Sweatshops workers are often forced to work long hours for little or no pay, regardless of any laws about overtime pay or a minimum wage. Child labor laws may also be violated. Many people believe that sweatshops are the cause for women and children exploitation; meanwhile, defenders of sweatshops, such as Paul Krugman and Johan Norberg, claim that people choose to work in sweatshops because the sweatshops offer them significantly higher wages and better working conditions compared to their previous jobs of “manual farm labor,” and that sweatshops are the beginning of a process of technological and economic development where a poor country turns itself into a rich country. In addition, sometimes when anti-sweatshop activists were successful in getting sweatshops to close, some of the employees who had been working in the sweatshops ended up starving to death, while others ended up turning to prostitution. Therefore, sometimes is not a good idea to intervene in foreign affairs. On the other hand, we can force companies from the US that are moving their factories ells were to pay workers a fair salary, but this idea will lead to an unintended consequences. A consequence such as an increase in price of clothing, toys and other products made in sweatshops can affect many American citizens in the US whom live a paycheck away from being consider poor. To sum my thoughts, I must say that for every action there are unintended consequences therefore we must reevaluate all our actions. Think twice before acting!

Environmental Issues-Where Does Recycling Go?

Even though many people recycle, some people do not know where or what can it be recycled into. Steel cans are separated out from other recyclables by using a magnet. The cans are then crushed, compressed into bales, re-melted and turned into new steel products such as new cans, car doors, bridges and refrigerators. Liquid paperboard cartons (milk and juice cartons, including "long-life" cartons) are recycled into high quality office paper. A one liter carton can be recycled back into 5 -7 sheets. Aluminum cans can be recycled over and over into new cans. Twenty recycled cans can be made using the same amount of energy as required to produce one can from raw materials. Newspapers, "glossies" and magazines are recycled into cardboard and packaging, insulation products, animal bedding, kitty litter, and fire logs. Cardboard and other paper products including writing paper, envelopes, cereal containers, novels and phone books are reprocessed to produce new cardboard. Two types of glass beverage bottles are made in South Australia “multi-fill” bottles are washed and refilled several times with the same product whereas beer, soft drink and wine single-fill bottles and jars are meant to be used only once and then returned to a recycler. These bottles are crushed and recycled into new bottles. Recycling generally prevents the waste of potentially useful materials, reduces the consumption of raw materials and reduces energy usage. As with many other forms of recycling, the energy used in recycling materials is much less than that used in working with virgin materials. The total amount of energy used to recycle paper can be anywhere between 28 percent and 70 percent less, which represents significant environmental benefits. Recycled paper does not need re-bleaching, meaning that fewer harmful chemicals are released into the environment. Paper is made from parts of a tree that are unusable by other industries such as construction. Unlike other recycled products, some virgin wood needs to be included in recycled paper. My point is that many materials that people consider trash can be recycled and reused in a different way. Therefore, think twice before throwing an item in the trash!

Human Migration and the Crisis in Rwanda (1994)

Around the world and in our own communities, people move in and out of places every day, and they have done so throughout human history. Their patterns of movement reflect the conditions of the changing world and, in turn, impact the cultural landscapes of the places they leave and the places they settle in ways that often last for many centuries. These marks on a area include new ethnic births, new spoken languages, new traditions, new food, music, clothes, and among other. According to the dictionary, human migration is any movement by humans from one location to another, sometimes over long distances or in large groups. The movement of people in modern times is composed of voluntary and involuntary migration which includes slave trade, trafficking, natural disasters, economic reasons or war. People who migrate are called migrants, or to be more specific, settlers. Sometimes forced migration has been means of social control under regimes for example in 1994 the fighting in Rwanda led to the massacre of at least half a million Tutsis by the Hutus. For two years Hutu militants, fearful of act of vengeance for the massacres, kept the refugees in exile. During December and November of 1996, it became a crisis as the civil war in Zaire cut off of more than half a million Hutu refugees from food and medical supplies. Faced with this situation they became desperate and began to turn for help to the UN. This desperate cry for help followed by Tanzania giving its Hutu refugees orders to return to Rwanda but, many fled to other countries instead. Rwanda is a perfect example of involuntary migration. Even though the reasons were different for the Tutsis and the Hutus, they both were forced to move because of a war.
***From the view point of the Tutsis -They were forced to move or stay in Rwanda and die.
***From the view point of the Hutus- Stay and watch family, friends, and neighbors be killed and have no food or move to a safe location and not have your children see all the horrors.

Diseases- What is HIV/AIDS?

Before reading Global Issues, Local Arguments by June Johnson I did not know much about diseases. Up to this point I am able to distinguish the difference between HIV and AIDS. HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus. It is a virus that attacks the immune system. HIV uses healthy white blood cells to replicate itself, breaking down the immune system and leaving the body more vulnerable to illness. Without treatment, most people infected with HIV become less able to fight off germs that we are exposed to every day. AIDS stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. It is a late stage of HIV infection. An HIV positive person is diagnosed with AIDS when their immune system is so weakened that it is no longer able to fight off illness. People with immune deficiency are much more vulnerable to infections such as pneumonia and various forms of cancer. Ultimately, people do not die from AIDS itself, they die from different infections such as pneumonia or cancer. There is no known cure or vaccine for AIDS. On the other hand there is medication that patients can take in order to fight HIV. It can take several years before HIV breaks down a person's immune system and causes AIDS, and people may show few symptoms for several years after they are infected. People who appear perfectly healthy may not know they have the virus and can pass it on to others. Therefore, testing oneself after having sexual intercourse with a partner can prevent the spread of this disease or before having a final commitment one can have their partner and themselves checked.

My Second Year- How do I feel about this Semester?

This semester (Fall 2008) I feel that I am more focused than the first year. Even though I was able to accomplish being in Honor Roll for two semesters, my biggest wish is to be on Dean’s List. This Semester I am more involved with school activities such as The Business Club, I’m working as a student -part time, I am attending Alfa meetings, and pledging for Theta Alpha Sigma, therefore it is hard to maintain all my grades. So far I have not received a letter of academic difficulty. The only two classes that I truly need to spend more time studying are Accounting Principles I and Microeconomics. Even though I read the chapters I find myself re-reading because I was not able to understand the concepts the first time. This semester I am learning to develop my time management skills by setting a time schedule everyday for studying, eating, working, attending classes and even sleeping. Other than further developing my time management skills I also have to face trade-offs. Sometimes I have to decide whether I want to study one extra hour for a class or if I want to sleep one extra hour. My biggest fears for this semester are not being able to allocate my time wisely and not being able to obtain the grades that I desire. Even though I am scoring high on my exams if I do not pass one exam, that one exam can change my grade drastically. This semester I also find myself spending more time in the Mount St. Mary’s library. After work my body tends to gravitate towards the quiet, peaceful library. There I am able to work on all my school assignments, projects and homework without being distracted by music, pictures or other distractions.

Alexandria’s House- What problems have I encountered?

I have attended zero times to Alexandria’s House. On December the 12 at 8:00am – 10: 00 am and Saturday the 13 from 9:00-12:00PM I will be going to Alexandria’s House. My biggest fears from attending Alexandria’s House are not being able to communicate with the other people well. I am also fearful of not being a great tutor.Other than that I am happy to have the opportunity to help and tutor or take care of kids.Getting to Alexandria’s house will be a challenge for me because I need to car pool with other students, but other than that I am looking forward to attending Alexandria’s house.

It is November 28, 2008 and I still have not attended Alexandria’s house. I was not able to attend because I did not reseved an e-mail confirming my scheduled hours. Due to the fact that Alexandria’s personal was not responding to my e-mails I had to go to Alexandria’s house and redo my schedule. I will be attending Alexandria’s house December 4, 2009 and December 6, 2009 from 8:00am to 2:00pm. At the beginning, I had no clue with whom I was going to car pool, but now I know that I will be car-pooling with Yanet. Even though I still have the same fear of not being able to communicate with other people I have developed another concern, on December 6, 2008 Yanet will be leaving early home and I would have to take public transportation to retune to my house.

Human Rights- What is Human Trafficking?

After reading a few articles in the book Global Issues, Local Arguments by June Johnson I was able to truly understand what human trafficking meant and how victims of human trafficking are trafficked. Many victims of trafficking are forced to work in prostitution or sex entertainment. However, trafficking also takes place as labor exploitation, such as domestic servitude, sweatshop factories, or migrant agricultural work. Traffickers use force, fraud and intimidation to force women, men and children to engage in these activities. Force involves the use of rape, beatings and confinement to control victims. Forceful violence is used especially during the early stages of victimization, known as the ‘seasoning process’, which is used to break victim’s resistance to make them easier to control. Fraud often involves false offers of employment. For example, women and children will reply to advertisements promising jobs as waitresses, maids and dancers in other countries and are then forced into prostitution once they arrive at their destinations. Intimidation involves threats of serious harm to, or physical restraint of, victims of trafficking; any method, plan or pattern intended to cause victims to believe that failure to perform an act would result in restraint against them; or the abusers family. Victims of trafficking are often subjected to “debt-bondage,” usually in the context of paying off transportation fees into the destination countries. Traffickers often threaten victims with injury or death, or the safety of the victim’s family back home. Traffickers commonly take away the victims’ travel documents and isolate them to make escape more difficult. I am also aware that there is a huge difference between human trafficking and migrant smuggling. Migrant smuggling consist of migrants consent to being smuggled and smuggling is always transnational.