THE GIRL-CHILD IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY The girl-child is one of, if not the most, exploitable segments of the world's population. Children in general because of their dependence upon adults and their natural naivet due to lack of life experience. In the context of our new global economy, child labor issues are becoming very prevalent and their discussion very necessary. The tragedy of the child labor issues is that the multinational corporations created within the global economy are not able to see the damage they cause in other countries. Also, modern corporate organization doesn't require the business leaders to view the conditions of their employees, personally, and within the workplace. Children and women are heavily exploited within this structure because of poverty, desperation, and survival. Girls are at the bottom of this list. Women have the advantage of age in some instance, but girls are sometimes left to fend for themselves because of orphanhood or a family caretaker status. This dilemma is invisible to most people, even the occurrences within the United States are left unknown about by those in the official class system. The girls exploited have been paid in an economic category far below what is considered lower class or even impoverished. This type of issue is a personal one and therefore cannot be fully explained or understood through statistics and purely analytical data. The experience of these girls individually is just as important as their numbers.Some of the regions that are affected by this phenomenon are closely related to the United States. Latin America has experienced a significant boost in exploitable labor schemes targeted at young girls. There are factory jobs popularly named "maquilas". In these maquilas, girls from the ages of 7-18 work horrendous 16-24 hour days with short or no breaks, unprovided health care, and no protection from the men who own or run the factories NAFTA (North Ameri...
