Since times of slavery in the United States cotton has meant big business to entrepreneurs in America. Whether it be used in clothes, home furnishings and even in the American dollar, cotton is a major product in many everyday things that we use. No one knows exactly how old cotton is. Although scientists have recovered bits of cotton believed to be dated back over 7,000 years ago! Cotton was first spun by machinery in England in 1730. The industrial revolution in England and the invention on the cotton gin in the U.S. paved the way for the important place cotton holds in the world today. Because of Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, within ten years the value of the U.S. cotton crop rose from $150,000 to more than $8 million. Cotton grows in warm climate and most of the world’s cotton is grown in the U.S., Uzbekistan, the People’s Republic of China and India. In America, the major cotton-producing states are: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas, Florida, Kansas, and Virginia. So needless to say America is definitely a major contributor to the cotton used in our everyday lives. Location is important, but the point of this essay isn’t to tell you all about the facts of cotton. Although cotton has brought in a lot of revenue for all countries involved, what is the cost paid by the citizens and workers? In September thousands of children in Uzbekistan are forced to partake in one of the world’s most enduring examples of large-scale, abusive child labour. Investigators of the event found children as young as 10, pulled from their schools and forced to work in grueling conditions and pick exhausting quotas of cotton. In 2008, the conditions were so unbearable that 5 children lost their lives, one being a little girl that committed