When you're around any college campus it's easy to spot a young woman carrying a handbag.
Purses are stylish, comfortable to wear and carry all the contents a woman will use that day. Some of the more affluent women purchase authentic, designer handbags for status and quality reasons. Others can't afford the astronomical price and decide to buy a knock-off, which is an artificial replication of the original. Why buy a genuine bag when a fake one could pass as an original?
Well, that phony bag may have a direct result in funding America's worst enemy: terrorism.
"Ronald K. Noble, the secretary general of Interpol, told the House of Representatives Committee on International Relations that profits from the sale of counterfeit goods have gone to groups associated with Hezbollah, the Shiite terrorist group, paramilitary organizations in Northern Ireland and FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia," according to a recent article in The New York Times.
However, the corruption resulting from these cheap prices doesn't end there.
Mock purses are sold for cheap; therefore they must be produced even cheaper. They are inexpensive products that generally come from exceptionally discounted labor - see Wal-Mart.
Dana Thomas, author and correspondent for Newsweek, saw this calamity firsthand. On a trip to China, she witnessed police raid a factory that produced counterfeit handbags. "Inside, we found two dozen children, ages 8 to 13, gluing and sewing together fake luxury-brand handbags," Thomas wrote. "The police confiscated everything, arrested the owner and sent the children out. Some punched their timecards, hoping to still get paid."
Those cute little handbags are coming from sweatshops for preteens. And, as if the problem couldn't possibly get any worse, 750,000 American jobs are lost because of counterfeit merchandise, according to the "International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition." There is no statistic that measures total job loss across the globe, although it is positively much higher.
Fortunately, groups like the IACC are working diligently to help alleviate this problem. Many companies have jumped on board with the IACC because their products are often the ones being imitated. Coach, Adidas, Burberry and Estee Lauder are just some of the many organizations joining to fight this travesty. The IACC promotes legislation and regulations to eliminate piracy, which has an innumerable amount of negative effects.
In a nutshell, the low-priced handbags subsidize foreign child labor, which causes massive job loss in America, as well as other industrialized countries. Oh, and the remaining profits fund terrorists who fight Americans and our allies.
So what can we as consumers do to end this cycle of fraud?
First, we must stop purchasing any product that is conspicuously low-priced. If the retailer works out of a small kiosk and is selling a Coach bag for $10, it's probably a counterfeit.
Second, we must enlighten our friends and family about this quandary. Like so many other battles today, until this issue gets the adequate attention it's warranted, people will ignorantly continue to buy bogus handbags.
Finally, we must join with organizations like the IACC and its sponsors to reduce the amount of counterfeit material in the world.
An astounding 5 to 7 percent of world trade is dealt in counterfeits. Let's shrink it to 3 percent over our lifetime. Each one of us has the responsibility.
Being a conscientious citizen requires being a mindful consumer. Piracy is illegal and although buying pirated goods might save dollars immediately, its roaring karma will catch up with all of us in the end.
-Conor Shapiro is a political science senior.
-This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Daily Aztec. Send e-mail to letters@thedailyaztec.com. Anonymous letters will not be printed - include your full name, major and year in school.
Facts about Fakes
10 percent of all drugs sold in U.S. are counterfeit
2 percent of airline parts installed each year are counterfeit (520,000 parts)
5-7 percent of world trade is in counterfeit goods
U.S. companies lose $9 in trade due to international copyright piracy
750,000 U.S. jobs have been lost
counterfeiting costs U.S. businesses $200-$250 billion per year
The top 10 brands counterfeited include Microsoft, Nike, Adidas, Burberry, Louis Vuitton, Sony, Lacoste, Reebok, Viagra and Benson & Hedges.
Tiffany & Co., the 150-year-old upscale jewelry company, found 73 percent of sales on eBay involved frauds
Exports of counterfeit Chinese drugs to the developing world are in epidemic proportions, as
evidenced by recent reports from countries such as Nigeria, where local authorities
believe 68% of all pharmaceuticals are counterfeits - with most coming from China
and India
pie graphs of counterfeit items seized:
http://www.iacc.org/resources/07_midyr_seizures.pdf
-according to 2006 IACC information
Be the first to comment on this article!