How Bloomberg Found Children Picking Fair-Trade Cotton

Markets link people around the world in unexpected ways. We all know that. Seeing it up close is something else.

Last year, when cotton prices reached their highest level since the U.S. Civil War, we went looking for those human connections and the consequences.

Cotton's supply chain stretches from the hands of some of the world's poorest people, including millions of children, to the clothes worn by most everyone in the world's richest countries. It's also used in unexpected places (including car tires).

Child labor was of special interest for me and my editors as we began discussing the historic market.