My message:
Hi, American Eagle Outfitters!
I’m interested in your pants!
Where are they made?
I like corduroy specifically (for comfort and sanitary reasons), but I’d like to know where all of your clothes are made. Are they made in America? If not, where? How well compensated are workers who make American Eagle Outfitter clothing?
Curiously,
Clifton
They replied with the following:
Dear AE Friend,
Thank you for contacting us and sharing your feelings on the very important subject of child and slave labor. We want to assure you that American Eagle Outfitters has a zero tolerance policy in regards to the use of any inappropriate business practices. We require all of our vendors to sign and adhere to our Vendor Compliance Manual, which requires them to meet or exceed all the laws of their home country. Further, AE personally evaluates all of its factories before entering into a business agreement with them and have rejected many of them outright. In addition, AE not only sends its own employees around the world to make announced and unannounced inspections but employs the services of independent, outside companies to travel to our vendors to monitor that they are 100% in compliance with AE’s standards and policies. In the 30+ years that AE has been in business, we are happy to say that we have never faced any violation of human rights issues. We hope this information has addressed your concerns.
Thanks for being a part of the American Eagle brand!
Puzzlingly, they also sent me this bra return form.
I can’t believe all the negative publicity child labor gets. Without the right to work, children aren’t able to make a living. Then they have to sell themselves as sex slaves. I think people who enforce child labor laws are pedophiles.
I think you bring up a great point: Should children be forced laborers or forced prostitutes? From my perspective, there’s little difference. I find myself wondering, in rare fits of wild idealism, if we* couldn’t one day give all children one more career choice: sociopathic religious fanatic.
Incidentally, the Merrill Lynch and Capgemini 2007 World Wealth Report claims the following: “9.5 million people globally hold more than US$1 million in financial assets, an increase of 8.3% over 2005.”
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, food riots have broken out on three continents. Could vegetarianism be a solution?
*homo and icthyo sapiens