Michael Jordan reportedly earns $20 million a year endorsing Nike sneakers. And that is more than the total annual payroll for the thousands of Indonesians who help make them. Nike shot back that those shoes are actually made in Taiwan by workers earning an average of $800 a month each. Does Nike exploit workers? “I’m not really aware of that,” said Jordan. “My job with Nike is to endorse the product. Their job is to be up on that.”
The flaying of celebrities like Jordan made it easy for Americans to miss the point. For years children have been sold as slaves, blinded or maimed for crying or rebelling or trying to return home, ill-fed, bone-weary, short-lived. The file scissors blades, mix gunpowder for firecrackers, knot carpets, stitch soccer balls with needles longer than their fingers. Human-rights groups guess there may be 200 million children around the world, from China to South America, working full time-no pay, no school, no chance. All of which raises the question, once the news lands on the front page: How much are Americans willing to sacrifice the children of other countries to give their own children what they want.
