Child Labor Working
I. Introduction
Child Labor is a fundamental human right issue. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the International Labor Organization (ILO) in a 1998, there are about 250 million children in the world, under the age 14, working full time to earn a daily wage (“Eliminating Child Labor”, 2001). Moreover, there are about 150 to 200 million children, who work to provide for their families. In most of the countries where child labor is widespread, 80% of working children work 7 days a week. In Asian countries, 90 million children work. In South Asian countries, there are an increasing number of young girls taken to prostitution. Also, the study found that boys aged between 6 and 10 are shipped to the Middle East to do intensive work. In Africa, about 33% of children sell their labor. In fact, Africa has he highest rate of child labors in the world. More than 70% of children in Sierra Leone and Niger work (Allison, 2003). And in all, there are about one in every three African children working on a daily basis.
In Latin America, there are about 5 million children are working full time. However, child labor still persists even in some developed countries. In the entire world, there is 19% of all children work.
In my opinion, the organizations against child labor are important. In this paper, I will talk about the current situation in developing countries, what are the causes of child labour, and the United Nations activities.
II. Children Exploitation
The worse thing about child labor is that let children work in hazardous environments. Hundreds of boys in Colombia work in a labor-intensive coal mines. Because of their small sizes, Colombian children are the ones who are told to go into tight passageways to pick small coals. (Weiss man, 1997). They are working in dusty environment, so most of these children grow up with lung diseases. Also, in Cambodia, children work in brick factories. Often, they are cut while working with heavy machinery. However, the incidents of injury are less than fatigue. These children, when interviewed by the Asian-American Free Labor Institute, were discovered to have been laboring because of their debt with their employer. A lot of countries with high incidence of young girls being sold to prostitution markets prostitution to Europe, Middle East, and more.
Oftentimes, the children’s parents accrue debt that their sons and daughters must pay for it. Although, debts are small, the children lose their entire childhood, or worst, their entire lives to pay off the debt that is often set by the debt holders. This is a usual practice keeps families in debt for generations. But it is in India and Pakistan that debt bondage is most pervasive because it is supported by longstanding traditions against low class group.
III. When Child Labor became a World Crisis
Child labor has existed for centuries. What made child labor a problem was that there were people supporting it even if it’s immoral, and they were doing it in the name of their individual business. Later, most U.S. states have stopped the use of Child labor. Starting in 1916, President Woodrow Wilson regulated child labor. In 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act completely banned child labor. It would take several more years to enforce this law throughout the country. However, the United States was one of the first countries in the world to have effectively eliminated it. Now, the debate of child labor reaches an alarming situation. It has become a global crisis because child labor is needed for the rising poverty.
In fact, the United States has really got rid of child labor, but many U.S. multinational companies have been exploiting it, especially in the apparel industry such as Nike, Reebok, and Liz Claiborne. Consequently, former President Bill Clinton organized an industry wide agreement on U.S. companies not to employ children in their overseas factories. Also, in 1992, the Child Labor Deterrence Act completely banned imported good made by laborers below 14 years of age (Lopez & Calva, 2001). Also, if countries were found to exploit children as laborers, the U.S. would stop aiding to them. It is believed that a 9-year-old in a sweatshop is equivalent to slavery or unlawful imprisonment. People are particularly against Chinese factories.
IV. Causes of Child Labor
There are numerous factors that contribute to the growth of child labor. The most important one is economic globalization. Because globalization intensified price competition for a global consumer marker, everyone wants to lower their cost. Child labor has always been equated with lower cost, because children’s wages are very low, they don’t complain and they agree to work long hours with no overtime pay, so this is the reason that a number of children are increasing in sewing factories in Haiti, Honduras and Guatemala, who make the products of Disney, Wal-Mart, Philips, Van Heusen, etc (Weiss man, 1997). Unregulated and unchecked, there is no stopping the growth of child labor.
But, as empirical evidence shows, the most robust determinant of child labor are still the poverty status of the household and education (Lopez & Calva, 2001). Surprisingly, the wages that the children does not affect the decision of the parents to put their children to work, but it only matters to them that because of their poverty status, so their children has to work one way or another. Moreover, it has been found that other factors such as cultural traditions, divorce, or even the availability of opportunity do not necessarily make the parent decide to put their child to work to replace their schooling. It would take enormous amount of pressure from poverty that leads them place their child to labor, and in many third world countries, many experiences the exact kind of problem.
At the heart of the debate, there are two competing motivations behind child labor: is it about preference, or is it about constraint. “Would parents prefer to send their children to work if they weren’t facing sever economic constraints? Would parents send their children to work if they really had the opportunity to choose?” (Lopez & Calva, 2001). Research proved that child labor was a phenomenon directly related more to constraints and not to preferences.
V. The Crisis
With poverty as the main determinant of child labor, the United States and other developed countries are met with a more troubling scenario. For instance, in some countries like Ecuador and its banana plantations, who encourages child labor to gain more profit, they actually don’t have any other choice to rise themselves from poverty. So when activists from affluent countries join together in a World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting, and win the act of banning Ecuador’s products and foreclose them, they are also closing the last major option for the poorest of people (Sowell, 2002). The result is that the activist celebrates their moral victory, but the country they have foreclosed the factories are now a lot poorer.
Here is then the great dilemma facing the child labor crisis. Campaigns against child labor in developing countries can definitely have unintended consequences of endangering children. When children lose their jobs in garment factories, they find more dangerous sources of income just to make a living. Indeed, according to Berlau (1997), child labor laws such as the Harkin’s bill could only work in countries with higher standards of living. After gathering evidences, scholars have come to the generalization that its easy for us Americans to label child labor as inhumane and debate against it; it’s easy for the U.S. to tell India or Pakistan to stop child labor “immediately, effectively, or else”; but it’s not easy to have considered the alternatives.
The Harkin’s bill when adopted against Bangladesh was monitored closely by UNICEF. Follow-up visits confirmed that the bill did free the 50,000 children from the garment factories, but it did not answer to the reality of poverty. Children were still trapped in a harsh environment with no skills, no access to education, and no economic alternatives. Thus, they went to new sources of income like street hustling, prostitution, stone-crushing, which are a lot more hazardous than their former job at the factory. Furthermore, mothers quit their jobs to look for their children who have become unemployed, leading to a more impoverished state for families.
The reality in many third world countries is that garment factories serve as essential in the economic survival of the massive poor population. In fact, too many children, especially girls, would even lie about their ages to try to get to work in a garment factory. To them, working there is even prestigious given the fact that its salary and working conditions are comparatively better than other available jobs. Compare this to other jobs like domestic house work in Bangladesh. Not only are these jobs very low paying, but its children get abused.
Now, many are realizing that its not like child labor is bad and should be stop, but one also has to consider the enormous consequence of that. Of course, it is morally correct to stop these children from working, but there’s also the economic factor of survival and improving their conditions. It is possible for other countries to outlaw child labor and the united States have to realize that that’s a long term mission. And developed countries should also realize that child-labor laws can only work in third world countries only when its standards of living had risen to a level where it is no longer an economic necessity for children to work (Berlau, 1997). So the greatest enabling factor for social legislation is still economic growth.
VI. United Nations are failing
There were some Child labor laws that limit the bringing of goods from foreign country made by children, aiming that certified products without the use of child labor. There are others that completely banned such products. But became obsolete once the UNICEF found out that it has unintended consequences of endangering children more. In addition, it became controversial as third world non-governmental organizations denounced it as a form of protectionism by unfairly penalizing poor countries (Weiss man, 1997). Meanwhile, United Nations, organizations, and professionals did not attend the children’s program goal. Kawewe and Dibie (1999) argued that the U.N was still unsuccessful to remove obstacles that could have advanced the welfare of children. For example, the U.N. continually fails to challenge some harmful fundamental cultural values and practices such as those traditional discriminatory acts against those belonging in the lower groups in India. This failure has led to non-action against children’s exploitation.
VII. Possible Solutions to End Child Labor
The new version would take action against child labor “under circumstances to involuntary servitude or under exposure to toxic substances or working conditions otherwise posing serious health hazards” (Weiss man, 1997). These changes in the bill are just one of the small steps to do in bringing a total end to global child labor. Certainly, this is a crisis that is hard to solve and would unlikely be solved within the decade. Simple laws of economics of the law of supply and demand to prevent its eradication. As long as developed countries demand products made by child labors, even unknowingly, then companies would keep doing what their doing, sell it as long as it’s making profit. True, legislation can reduce child labor, but there is always a good chance that employers sneak in a group of children in their factories. Hence, the possible (or perhaps the only) route for ending child labor is to stop our dependence of cheap foreign labor.
VIII. Conclusion
Child labor is a fundamental issue and it is very likely that it would have a future effect on children psychological and physical performance for generations. Fight against child labor is an essential task in order to contribute to the creation of a good policy. Still, there is a long road ahead. Child labor is a direct consequence of poverty and unemployment. To ban the products by child labor would have unintended consequences. The Harkin’s bill, despite its changes, would only work when it regulates products; at the same time, accompanies compulsory schooling and other forms of foreign aid directed to the welfare of the families. In any case, the dimension of the crisis truly deserves more attention both in the economic and public policy.
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