- May 2016
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www.jacobinmag.com www.jacobinmag.com
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Poverty Ends With Her
If Nike truly believes poverty ends with her, then they need to start giving women more rights in their factories. This is such a double standard to back this slogan but not respect the women working for them.
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In other words, none of them was prepared to admit to Nike’s double standards on women’s rights. This is troubling because, while underreported, evidence of Nike’s ongoing sweatshop exploitation is easily accessible, particularly to the women’s rights community.
It is like Nike is choosing which women the company will support. The company will empower some women, but not those who Nike exploits in the sweatshops. This reminds me of the movie Suffragette because women were fighting for the right to vote but not for every woman, just for a select group of women.
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very few international NGOs call for a transformation of the global economic system, greater corporate accountability, or the enforcement of labor rights and workplace standards in corporate sweatshops. Instead, women’s leadership development, entrepreneurship (particularly in social enterprises), access to financial services, and sports programs for youth are the favored poverty-reduction strategies
You cannot have one without the other. It makes no sense how NGOs can advocate for women's leadership development while no longer advocating for women's labor rights and workplace standards.
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breaking down barriers that prevent girls and women from entering the marketplace has become a major priority.
Many of these barriers stem from religion or culture, and it is going to take much more than just initiatives from these corporations to completely break down these barriers.
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attaching their brands to trusted activist organizations — preferably those who represent “innocent victims,” such as children and women and, ideally, those who focus on the cultural and traditional practices that oppress them — is a lucrative way to protect their reputations
How genuine is this support of NGOs and of poor people around the world? If these companies are involving themselves in these activist organizations to better their brand and preserve their reputation, to me this action does the complete opposite and makes these companies look worse for using this cause for ulterior motives.
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Corporations, these texts tell us, have come to recognize that promoting global equality isn’t a purely altruistic act — it is also in their own interest
This is exactly the issue. They do this more for their own financial gain.
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but because they’re well suited to help in the design and implementation of poverty reduction programs
Big businesses have such an opportunity for implementing poverty reduction programs. However, it seems that instead they go in to developing countries and take advantage of the cheap labor for their own financial gain instead of going in with the intention to help those in poverty by providing well paying jobs.
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For years he has touted big business as a “truly transformative force” whose goodwill and resources provide a “unique opportunity” to drive sustainable development.
We have heard many stories of the harm big businesses bring when they go in to foreign companies, exploit the cheap labor, and run smaller local businesses out of business. It seems that big businesses do not drive the sustainable development of poorer countries; instead it seems in most cases that they inhibit growth or cause growth at a tremendous cost to natives of that country.
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