Amnesty International at UT held a screening Tuesday of "Something to Hide," a film about the inhumane nature of sweatshops.

Filmed in 1999 and primarily dealing with El Salvador, the roughly 25-minute documentary discusses the terrible conditions and treatment the sweatshop workers face on a daily basis.

National Labor Committee in Support of Human and Worker Rights executive director, Charles Kernaghan explained how the sweatshops target young women, giving them no rights.

"When they try to learn their rights, they're fired," Kernaghan stated.

The sweatshops shown in the film are contained within what are called free trade zones and are surrounded  by concrete walls, barbed wire and armed guards.

The sweatshops shown in the film are contained within what are called free trade zones and are surrounded by concrete walls, barbed wire and armed guards.

As of 1999, minimum wage in El Salvador stood at a paltry 60 cents per hour. According to the film, this amount covered less than one-third of the cost of living.

The documentary used Nike's factories as an example to show the severity of low monetary compensation in some sweatshops. Shown in the video, the workers at the Nike shop are required to make a certain shirt in six and a half minutes and are only paid 7 cents per item. The same shirt sells for more than $22 in the United States.

The factories don't allow outside visitors in to witness the conditions, and workers are not allowed to talk about the shops to anyone. One lady, Sonia Beatriz Lara, was fired for talking to students from Colombia University about the Liz Claiborne shop where she was employed.

The sweatshop managers, ownership and clothing companies worry about their employees talking to utsiders, specifically young people.

If you look at the major nightmare of the major corporations, it is that young people will start to ask questions."If you look at the major nightmare of the major corporations, it is that young people will start to ask questions," Kernaghan said.

Here on campus, Amnesty International is hard at work getting students to sign a petition that will be taken to the administration.

Amnesty International member and graduate student, Woods Nash said that more than 200 signatures have already been collected in a petition to urge university administration to sign on with the Worker Rights Consortium, a group that monitors the factories being used by university apparel companies.

"It would make an enormous difference if we did affiliate with the WRC," Nash explained. "We're constantly in the top-10 in apparel sales."