"" If they are not sold, at an early age, they are sent to big cities to generate a stable income at these factories. Then "they send the money back home to their parents and often pay for their little brothers and sisters to go to school- (p.217). These females then suffer from many illnesses. Such illnesses include: " respiratory infections, lungs filled with dust from fabrics in the factory. And not only dust: others work with lead and other chemicals and suffer from chronic lead poisoning. Besides asthma, hair and memory loss, and constant pain in their hands, necks, and shoulders, they have episodes of vomiting and the women have irregular periods- (p.216-217). Is it worth working to this extent for a couple bucks?.
Sunanta says, that although her job has made her sick, she is afraid she "may end up losing her integrity, her self esteem and even her identity- (p.219). Bangkok standards consider her to be lucky to have such a good job, although it only pays six or seven dollars per twelve hours. Again we ask ourselves why? "It is a catch-22 situation: if they don't work, their relatives get nothing, if they do work, they get sick from all the chemicals and dust- (p.217). Their obligations as family members are to help poorer relatives. One woman states, "We have to think of our parents in Chaing Mai and our small brothers and sisters who is going to pay for them if we don't? (p.217). So then who benefits? Going up the social classes we ask who's in control?.
Some suggests that this deplorable situation of these workers promote the development of the government in the Third World. The idea of this modernization theory may be the cause of industrialized nations to prosper from the use of cheap labor in Third World countries. On the other hand, the world system theory views this economic relationship as "exploitive of Third World countries and detrimental to their economic development- (p.