New Browser Plug-In Helps you Avoid Products Made With Child Labor

A new Internet browser plug-in will tell you if a product you’re looking at on an online retailer uses child labor in its production.

Called aVOID, it currently works with the Safari and Chrome browsers and will soon be available for Firefox. The plugin, whose creation was made possible by the German company Earthlink, works with many of the major online retailers in Germany, France, the U.K and the United States, including Asos, Yoox, Amazon, Target, Macys, Zalando, Google Shopping, Frontlineshop and Otto.

If your German is better than mine, you can also read here a list of companies and how they rank in terms of utilization of child labor in the manufacture of various product lines.

The plugin draws on a database provided by the cause Active Against Child Labour.

Back in November 2011, after reading the horrifying book “Half the Sky” by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, I committed to help the plight of girls and women in the developing world with this blog and in other ways.

"Half the Sky" brilliantly drives home the point that in too much of the world girls and women are abused, trafficked, mutilated, enslaved, and even murdered for largely cultural reasons. Every bit of this is immoral and wrong. It must not be allowed to continue and none of us can sit idly by while it happens.

Children are sometimes trafficked to work in factories. It goes without saying, I hope, that even children in severely economically depressed areas should be in school, not working.

Knowing that your favorite jeans or shoes come from factories that use child labor is a good first step toward more ethical consumption.

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