Why Does Childlabour Still Persist In Both Developed And Developing Countries?

In my last two articles about child labour, I discussed the direct impacts on the children, their education and their families/communities of our consumption of child labour made goods. Additionally, I talked about the impact on their economies and how challenging it is to break the intergenerational poverty persistence cycle. In this opinion piece, I have chosen to discuss the issues and reasonings behind why child labour is demanded and persists in the western world and the impacts this has on developing countries, which then need to produce cheap goods that fuel our compulsive spending. I have decided to analyze it around capitalism and why we still think it is acceptable to purchase goods from places we know use child labour 

What is capitalism? First stage Capitalism was introduced as early as the 17th century as a way to replace feudalism and create the idea of a free market. It is now an economic system that is based on the private ownership of production and their sole operation for profit. Entities are now mostly controlled privately rather than by the state. Because of this, capitalism can be seen as both a negative and a positive. Some argue that it is good because it is designed to create a financial reward for hard work. But it can also cause great inequality, economic instability, monopolistic power, environmental costs and many other externalities. It also strongly encourages greed and materialism. Additionally, it is argued by some that it creates a modern society, it fuels a psychological need of always wanting goods and being a part of the newest trends. We are often taught to believe that the cheaper the goods, the better deal we are getting, no matter how they were created. Due to the demand of cheap goods, companies source their resources from the cheapest countries possible with minimal labour laws to stay in the market they have attached themselves too. This can also be seen from another perspective, in that companies want to stay as profitable as possible by reducing expenses and therefore want to acquire goods from places with non-traceable supply chains and cheap labour – i.e child labour. 

Capitalism did not however create child labour, but inherited child labour from the previous political systems and enhanced its demand so drastically that it is now one of the world’s greatest challenges to eradicate. We have seen why child labour is demanded in the western world, and now I would like to discuss the impact on developing countries and why it also persists in these countries. 

The extremely sad reality is that to stop child labour, it is not as simple as enforcing new laws. Even if companies stop using child labour in their supply chains, it does not necessarily mean that the child’s life simultaneously improves. For example in 1993, Wal-Mart was discovered to be using children to produce their clothing, as a result, Senator Tom Harkin proposed legislation that would ban imports from countries who were seen to be using children and because of this Bangladeshi factories halted using children. It was expected that these children would return to happy loving homes and school. But Oxfam devastatingly found that these children ended up in even worse employment with more inhuman conditions and prostitution. As long as the parents of children workers benefit greater when the child is working over them getting an education, child labour will always persist and improvements in living standards do not necessarily mean that child labour will be abolished. 

An opposing (?) view on this is that some believe that the parents in developing countries do not differ from parents in developed countries in their opinion on child labour. Over the years researchers have seen that the parents in ‘poor’ countries would ultimately prefer their children to receive an education and work less. If this is the case, then why is child labour so widespread? This is because severely impoverished families need their children to work to even start to survive, without children working families would be forced to chose which child to feed. Education is also extremely expensive in developing worlds and vastly out of reach for many, it is not an uncommon sight to see some children in a family working so that others to attend school. Therefore, even if these governments could somehow prevent children from working, we would see even fewer children getting an education. This is an incredibly devastating fact of child labour and shows just how complicated it is to remove from society. 

New Zealand is an example of a nation on the right path to eradicating child labour. In New Zealand, children have rights to free education, a minimum working age and wage and also laws around health and safety. Whilst it is acknowledged that New Zealand still has some work as a nation to improve, other countries are not so lucky and the basic human rights are not extended to them, not once in their entire lives. Again, the simplest way to help play your part in eliminating child labour successfully is to educate yourself around child labour; its devastating consequences, why it is one of the greatest challenges in our world, and what industries, companies and then goods/services use child labour in their supply chains. Lastly, use this education to stop buying and demanding these goods as much as you can.

 

Isabella Patrick

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