Jazz, Gender and Justice: Child Labor
Heigh Ho/Whistle While You Work
Introduction*
Running time 2:39
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*Since the performance of this piece, both Disney and The Gap have ameliorated conditions described in this monologue. However, many companies, across a variety of industries including tech firms, continue to exploit children and workers.
Heigh Ho/Whistle While You Work
Song
Running time 5:22
Music by Franke Churchill and Larry Morey
Improv section by Stephanie Glass
Photographs: National Labor Committee/People of Faith Network
This piece from Jazz, Gender and Justice captures a moment in everyday life when the connection between a child laboring in China or El Salvador, and the American child who will use the item produced, becomes all too vivid. It is a moment when the larger social and economic world makes its presence known in the intimacy of our homes. The narrative asks us to consider how many of the goods we use everyday have been made by children whose exploitation remains embedded in what we purchase. Fair trade? Free trade? Shouldn’t we know the difference between these economic approaches that result in whether the global marketplace is socially, environmentally and economically sustainable?