Tel-Chai Nation

Wal-Mart ruined its credibility by hiring illegal immigrants to work for them, but now, with the news that they and Target have been hiring a slavemongering Jordanian company to manufacture apparel for them, I'd say that makes them even more worth boycotting than ever (Hat tip: Jihad Watch):

Propelled by a free trade agreement with the United States, apparel manufacturing is booming in Jordan, its exports to America soaring twentyfold in the last five years.

But some foreign workers in Jordanian factories that produce garments for Target, Wal-Mart and other American retailers are complaining of dismal conditions — of 20-hour days, of not being paid for months and of being hit by supervisors and jailed when they complain.

An advocacy group for workers contends that some apparel makers in Jordan, and some contractors that supply foreign workers to them, have engaged in human trafficking. Workers from Bangladesh said they paid $1,000 to $3,000 to work in Jordan, but when they arrived, their passports were confiscated, restricting their ability to leave and tying them to jobs that often pay far less than promised and far less than the country's minimum wage.

"We used to start at 8 in the morning, and we'd work until midnight, 1 or 2 a.m., seven days a week," said Nargis Akhter, a 25-year-old Bangladeshi who, in a phone interview from Bangladesh, said she worked last year for the Paramount Garment factory outside Amman. "When we were in Bangladesh they promised us we would receive $120 a month, but in the five months I was there I only got one month's salary — and that was just $50."...

When they're not working and living in a country illegally, they're being kept prisoner there as slaves. A lot of these Arab/Islamic countries in fact, aren't all that restrictive about immigration (unless its Jews and Christians), and those who are foolish enough to venture there could quite possibly end up as slaves to vicious slavekeepers like these ones in Jordan are.

And for hiring companies owned by slavemongers to do the foreign-based work for them, that's why a boycott of Wal-Mart and Target would be most appropriate, just like it would be for the former's own hiring of illegal aliens to do the work for them.

Also available at Basil's Blog, bRight and Early, Cigar Intelligence Agency, Jo's Cafe, Voteswagon. Others on the subject include My Right Word, Quasi-Coherent Ruminations, Steve Sailer.

Labels: jordan