Editing Sweatshop (section)

===Late 20th century to present===
{{Further information|Slavery in the 21st century}}
In 1994, the United States [[Government Accountability Office]] reported that there were still thousands of sweatshops in the United States, using a definition of a ''sweatshop'' as any "employer that violates more than one federal or state labor law governing minimum wage and overtime, child labor, industrial homework, occupational safety and health, workers' compensation, or industry registration".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.gao.gov/products/hehs-95-29 |title=Garment Industry : Efforts to Address the Prevalence and Conditions of Sweatshops |publisher=[[Government Accountability Office]] |archive-date=February 25, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225031027/https://www.gao.gov/archive/1995/he95029.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref> This recent definition eliminates any historical distinction about the role of a middleman or the items produced and focuses on the legal standards of developed country workplaces. An area of controversy between supporters of outsourcing production to the [[Third World]] and the anti-sweatshop movement is whether such standards can or should be applied to the workplaces of the developing world.{{Citation needed|date=September 2011}}

Sweatshops are also sometimes implicated in [[human trafficking]] when workers have been tricked into starting work without [[informed consent]], or when workers are kept at work through [[debt bondage]] or mental duress, all of which are more likely if the workforce is drawn from children or the uneducated rural poor.{{citation needed|date=October 2015}} Because they often exist in places without effective workplace safety or environmental laws, sweatshops sometimes injure their workers or the environment at greater rates than would be acceptable in developed countries.{{Citation needed|date=September 2011}} [[Penal labor]] facilities (employing prisoners) may be grouped under the sweatshop label due to underpaid work conditions.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Zatz|first=Noah D.|date=April 2008|title=Working at the Boundaries of Markets: Prison Labor and the Economic Dimension of Employment Relationships |url=https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1509&context=vlr |journal=Vanderbilt Law Review|volume=61 |issue=3|pages=859–956|via=Vanderbilt University Law School}}</ref> 

Sweatshop conditions resemble prison labor in many cases, especially from a commonly found Western perspective. In 2014 Apple was caught "failing to protect its workers" in one of its [[Pegatron]] factories. Overwhelmed workers were caught falling asleep during their 12-hour shifts and an undercover reporter had to work 18 days in a row.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/business-30532463|title=Apple 'failing to protect Chinese factory workers' |website=BBC News|language=en-GB|access-date=March 10, 2016}}</ref> Sweatshops in question carry characteristics such as compulsory pregnancy tests for female laborers and terrorization from supervisors into submission.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/leading-article-the-gruesome-reality-of-sweatshops-2094318.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220526/https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/leading-article-the-gruesome-reality-of-sweatshops-2094318.html |archive-date=2022-05-26 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=Leading Article: The Gruesome Reality of Sweatshops |work=Independent.co.uk |date=October 1, 2010 |access-date=April 2, 2013}}</ref> Workers then go into a state of forced labor, and if even one day of work is not accounted for they could be immediately fired. These working conditions have been the source of suicidal unrest within factories in the past. Chinese sweatshops known to have increased numbers of suicidal employees have suicide nets covering the whole site, in place to stop overworked and stressed employees from leaping to their deaths, such as in the case of the [[Foxconn suicides]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=What happened after the Foxconn suicides|url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-happened-after-the-foxconn-suicides/|access-date=2021-12-05|website=www.cbsnews.com|date=7 August 2013 |language=en-US}}</ref>

Recently, [[Boohoo.com|Boohoo]] came under light since auditors uncovered a large chain of factories in Leicester producing clothes for Boohoo that were only paying their workers between £3-4.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2020-08-28|title='Just get out of here': how Leicester's factories went to war with Boohoo|url=http://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/aug/28/boohoo-leicester-factories-went-to-war|access-date=2021-04-21|website=the Guardian|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last1=de Ferrer |first1=Marthe |last2=Katanich |first2=Doloresz |date=2020-07-09 |title=Inside the Leicester sweatshops accused of modern slavery |url=https://www.euronews.com/green/2020/07/09/inside-the-leicester-sweatshops-accused-of-modern-slavery |access-date=2022-04-24 |website=euronews |language=en}}</ref> The conditions of the factories were described as terrible and workers received "illegally low pay".<ref>{{Cite web|date=2020-10-02|title=Boohoo bargains – but at a human cost|url=https://www.antislavery.org/boohoo-bargains-but-at-a-human-cost/|access-date=2021-04-30|website=Anti-Slavery International|language=en-GB}}</ref>