Should Child labour be tolerated in third world nations?

[Gil Hamilton]

We all come from countries where child labour laws make exceptions for farming. Few people are outraged about that.

However, there is a difference between children helping there communal farm (that's the reason that such communities tend to have large families, because they are breeding little farm hands), where every able bodied member of the population has to contribute or else the whole set up is unsustainable and this. Children who work in kibbitzum and such aren't brutalized or forced to work in slavery, nor are they denied whatever education that the community can provide. They all work, but they are all taken care of, to the capacity of the community. The only way that you can forbid children from gathering plantings and milking cows is to remove the communal farm entirely, because if only a section of the adult population of such a community contributes, the community fails. I suppose you could call family resturants where the kids are in the back scrubbing dishes or working the till after they get out from school "child labour" as well, but you know that's not what we are talking about.

That's a damn sight different than the actual child slavery that we are talking about, which is illegal and immoral by Western standards. I know for a fact that child labor of the sort we are actually discussing is completely illegal in Canada, but let me give you the same question I posed at Norseman. Would you have a problem with it if Canadian children, maybe some of those dirt poor Native kids in Northwestern Canada, were working in sweat shop conditions to bring you cheap consumer goods? If so, what changes when they are in a third world country?

[ray245]

We all come from countries where child labour laws make exceptions for farming. Few people are outraged about that.

However, there is a difference between children helping there communal farm (that's the reason that such communities tend to have large families, because they are breeding little farm hands), where every able bodied member of the population has to contribute or else the whole set up is unsustainable and this. Children who work in kibbitzum and such aren't brutalized or forced to work in slavery, nor are they denied whatever education that the community can provide. They all work, but they are all taken care of, to the capacity of the community. The only way that you can forbid children from gathering plantings and milking cows is to remove the communal farm entirely, because if only a section of the adult population of such a community contributes, the community fails. I suppose you could call family resturants where the kids are in the back scrubbing dishes or working the till after they get out from school "child labour" as well, but you know that's not what we are talking about.

That's a damn sight different than the actual child slavery that we are talking about, which is illegal and immoral by Western standards. I know for a fact that child labor of the sort we are actually discussing is completely illegal in Canada, but let me give you the same question I posed at Norseman. Would you have a problem with it if Canadian children, maybe some of those dirt poor Native kids in Northwestern Canada, were working in sweat shop conditions to bring you cheap consumer goods? If so, what changes when they are in a third world country?

I would be hesistant to call child labour as actual slavery per say. The players that forced those child to work is not really human beings but the children's living conditons.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I would be hesistant to call child labour as actual slavery per say. The players that forced those child to work is not really human beings but the children's living conditons.

Wrong. Sweatshops are owned by western companies, or at least contracted by them. Said western companies could easily afford to give said child laborers (or adult laborers) a decent wage and decent living conditions. They dont. They give their workers just enough to keep them from starving to death, and then dont even provide safe working conditions because if they DO provide safe conditions they will be out-competed by companies that dont.

[Darth Wong]

We all come from countries where child labour laws make exceptions for farming. Few people are outraged about that.

However, there is a difference between children helping there communal farm (that's the reason that such communities tend to have large families, because they are breeding little farm hands), where every able bodied member of the population has to contribute or else the whole set up is unsustainable and this. Children who work in kibbitzum and such aren't brutalized or forced to work in slavery, nor are they denied whatever education that the community can provide. They all work, but they are all taken care of, to the capacity of the community. The only way that you can forbid children from gathering plantings and milking cows is to remove the communal farm entirely, because if only a section of the adult population of such a community contributes, the community fails. I suppose you could call family resturants where the kids are in the back scrubbing dishes or working the till after they get out from school "child labour" as well, but you know that's not what we are talking about.

That's a damn sight different than the actual child slavery that we are talking about, which is illegal and immoral by Western standards. I know for a fact that child labor of the sort we are actually discussing is completely illegal in Canada, but let me give you the same question I posed at Norseman. Would you have a problem with it if Canadian children, maybe some of those dirt poor Native kids in Northwestern Canada, were working in sweat shop conditions to bring you cheap consumer goods? If so, what changes when they are in a third world country?

It's nice how you snipped out the first part of my post where I dealt with the exact question of sweatshops and how I feel they should be dealt with, and then have the gall to ask me a question about that issue as if I've been avoiding it.

[AniThyng]

However, if you DO think child slavery is wrong in your country, what changes when you cross your border that makes it OK? Are Cambodian or Indian poor children inherently worth less than your own country's poor kids?

What changes is that a 1st world country can afford to provide a decent orphanage and education to these poor kids, while a 3rd world shithole (for whatever reasons, including governmental corruption and amoral capitalism [my money is mine! MINE!]) isn't able to do so - what would you do? Should the rich countries perform adoption on a massive scale? Build orphanages and fund them appropriately? What?

[ray245]

I would be hesistant to call child labour as actual slavery per say. The players that forced those child to work is not really human beings but the children's living conditons.

Wrong. Sweatshops are owned by western companies, or at least contracted by them. Said western companies could easily afford to give said child laborers (or adult laborers) a decent wage and decent living conditions. They dont. They give their workers just enough to keep them from starving to death, and then dont even provide safe working conditions because if they DO provide safe conditions they will be out-competed by companies that dont.

I'm not talking about the working conditions experienced by those workers as a good thing. I'm saying that children would still be forced into working a a young age,regardless of the good working environment due to his or her living conditions.

[Gil Hamilton]

I would be hesistant to call child labour as actual slavery per say. The players that forced those child to work is not really human beings but the children's living conditons.

The players in this are absolutely human. Who do you think owns and runs these factories, robots? Who runs their countries, very often without any regard for these people at all, like fiefdoms that value padding their pockets with Western dollars is more than their own citizens? This is ACTUAL slavery, even with people who whip the peoples asses if they do anything wrong in some cases and very carefully make sure they can't afford to leave.

What changes is that a 1st world country can afford to provide a decent orphanage and education to these poor kids, while a 3rd world shithole (for whatever reasons, including governmental corruption and amoral capitalism [my money is mine! MINE!]) isn't able to do so - what would you do? Should the rich countries perform adoption on a massive scale? Build orphanages and fund them appropriately? What?

What I think First World countries should do is start actively refusing to be part of the whole thing. Forget keeping the price of sneakers down; make it illegal for any American company (in my countries case) to own or run factories that deliberately exploit these things we've been discussing and a Slavery charge for any executives who get caught doing it anyway. If they want to do business, they have to actually pay their laborers a decent wage and benefits, as determined by an independant organization such that the monkeys determining what "a decent wage" entails is not the status quo but something that allows such people to live with a moderately good standard of living (this is something that companies like Nike or Disney could EASILY afford and still make a decent profit). I would even consider full embargo on the countries that perpetuate those conditions aggressively, since if they are going to be utterly miserable to their own citizens, they don't need our business.

However, that's besides the point. If it's immoral in our OWN countries to do these things to our citizens such that we've aggressively outlawed it, why should it be moral for anyone else? Morality doesn't change when you cross a border, does it?

[AniThyng]

However, that's besides the point. If it's immoral in our OWN countries to do these things to our citizens such that we've aggressively outlawed it, why should it be moral for anyone else? Morality doesn't change when you cross a border, does it?

It would of course be nice if the Western executives and shareholders of MNC's that do this are punished, but I'll just talk about the embargo bit - how does this really help the children in question? Is it supposed to enlighten the already rich rulers of said nation (who it must be noted are probably richer then sin and send thier own children to study in western schools) to treat their nations children better? Is it supposed to make things so bad that a (usually leftist, communist) armed insurgency, probably using child soldiers as well, overthrows the corrupt government? There's also the fair point that rather then outlawing child labour par se, what should be outlawed is children living in poverty at all - and that is something even the most enlightened of 3rd world governments struggle to do. If there was a UN resolution tomorrow making poverty illegal, what could possibly be done to enforce this?

[K. A. Pital]

If there was a UN resolution tomorrow making poverty illegal, what could possibly be done to enforce this?

The only real way to do it fast would be forced and massive wealth re-distribution. That will not happen overnight. But we are fooling ourselves if we assume that industrializing nations could not live without child labour. That is bullshit of the highest degree. Once industrial production picks off, the child as a labourer who has been transferred from the unsustainabel agrarian patch of land to work in a factory, is no longer needed. The system will sustain itself even without children as labourers.

And no, poverty does not equal child labour. There are many nations where populations, or a significant swath of it, is in poverty and yet child labour is not as rampant as in neighboring nations, say.

Legal factors can mean a lot here, and it's stupid to just call it "truth of life", nature of capitalism or some other bullshit. How would you explain that China used less child labour than India despite being relatively of the same poverty level when both nations starte their thorny paths to industrialism in the early 1950s? I'm all ears.

[ray245]

If there was a UN resolution tomorrow making poverty illegal, what could possibly be done to enforce this?

The only real way to do it fast would be forced and massive wealth re-distribution. That will not happen overnight. But we are fooling ourselves if we assume that industrializing nations could not live without child labour. That is bullshit of the highest degree. Once industrial production picks off, the child as a labourer who has been transferred from the unsustainabel agrarian patch of land to work in a factory, is no longer needed. The system will sustain itself even without children as labourers.

And no, poverty does not equal child labour. There are many nations where populations, or a significant swath of it, is in poverty and yet child labour is not as rampant as in neighboring nations, say.

Legal factors can mean a lot here, and it's stupid to just call it "truth of life", nature of capitalism or some other bullshit. How would you explain that China used less child labour than India despite being relatively of the same poverty level when both nations starte their thorny paths to industrialism in the early 1950s? I'm all ears.

I thought that the nature of one-child policy essentially makes parents unwillingly to send their kids to work and starts to pamper them?

Additionally, even if the nation managed to enforce child labour laws, how would you ensure that kids from those poor family would be able to feed themselves?

[AniThyng]

If there was a UN resolution tomorrow making poverty illegal, what could possibly be done to enforce this?

The only real way to do it fast would be forced and massive wealth re-distribution. That will not happen overnight. But we are fooling ourselves if we assume that industrializing nations could not live without child labour. That is bullshit of the highest degree. Once industrial production picks off, the child as a labourer who has been transferred from the unsustainabel agrarian patch of land to work in a factory, is no longer needed. The system will sustain itself even without children as labourers.

And no, poverty does not equal child labour. There are many nations where populations, or a significant swath of it, is in poverty and yet child labour is not as rampant as in neighboring nations, say.

Legal factors can mean a lot here, and it's stupid to just call it "truth of life", nature of capitalism or some other bullshit. How would you explain that China used less child labour than India despite being relatively of the same poverty level when both nations starte their thorny paths to industrialism in the early 1950s? I'm all ears.

This is just an opinion, but I would venture that it is because culturally, Chinese parents were never going to let their children do that - we are talking about a society where traditionally entire villages would band together to send some children to school/university in the hope that they will come back and contribute - education is VERY important to a chinese family. It's anecdotal and nowhere near the same level of poverty we're talking about, but my own mother was given up for adoption into a family friend's family because her birth family could not afford to raise her. (This didn't happen in China, but it's still reflective of a chinese attitude.)

The question here is that yes, we can make it so that factories are forbidden to employ child labourers, but what happens to the children? At some point somewhere the (a) state has to step in and make sure they get education and food at the very least - admittedly they are not getting the former anyway. So I honestly don't have an answer to that. I'm sure these countries could do without child labour , the question here is how do we get those children do do away with thier country...

[K. A. Pital]

Additionally, even if the nation managed to enforce child labour laws, how would you ensure that kids from those poor family would be able to feed themselves?

If they live in abject poverty, child labour is not their salvation - it's a disease that is eating them. It is the surest way to ruin your health in childhood. Like I said, if there is such poverty so that people starve, the nation probably has no industry to speak of, and child labour is agricultural. In case the nation has industry, child labour is useless for the industry can support the economy without child labour.

This didn't happen in China, but it's still reflective of a chinese attitude.

If we're not talking about a level of poverty that basically sends a person to his starving death via express, I see all the less reason for child labour to even exist.

I'm sure these countries could do without child labour , the question here is how do we get those children do do away with thier country...

If these countries could do without child labour, they may be shitty countries but at least the children won't get worked to a loss of health in early years. Regarldess if they get an education later or remain without it and dirt poor for their entire following life, at least one of the negative effects of child labour would be negated.

That is enough grounds for me. Once again, only applicable to industrializing nations.

[ray245]

Additionally, even if the nation managed to enforce child labour laws, how would you ensure that kids from those poor family would be able to feed themselves?

If they live in abject poverty, child labour is not their salvation - it's a disease that is eating them. It is the surest way to ruin your health in childhood. Like I said, if there is such poverty so that people starve, the nation probably has no industry to speak of, and child labour is agricultural. In case the nation has industry, child labour is useless for the industry can support the economy without child labour.

Isn't India considered a nation that is largely industrial?

[K. A. Pital]

Isn't India considered a nation that is largely industrial?

It's only partly industrial but yes, were it's government more adept at crushing such vile manifestations of exploit as child labour, I'm sure it could've existed without it. India's abysmal record of child mortality, public health and the like (compared to neighbour communist China) is a long-standing issue that makes me seriously doubt whether India's problems are entirely a "objective" matter and not a cultural matter which makes the traditions and the like hold them back from progressive legislation at least, making India the architects of their own misery.

[ray245]

Isn't India considered a nation that is largely industrial?

It's only partly industrial but yes, were it's government more adept at crushing such vile manifestations of exploit as child labour, I'm sure it could've existed without it. India's abysmal record of child mortality, public health and the like (compared to neighbour communist China) is a long-standing issue that makes me seriously doubt whether India's problems are entirely a "objective" matter and not a cultural matter which makes the traditions and the like hold them back from progressive legislation at least, making India the architects of their own misery.

Just one question, are you saying that India would be able to provide all those children from poor family through the use of a welfare system?

[K. A. Pital]

Just one question, are you saying that India would be able to provide all those children from poor family through the use of a welfare system?

Yes, it could, if it had a more adept and powerful government. A government that would forcibly install a universal labour law and healthcare system in India could make it so that even the poorest children are provided for. The system might not work perfectly from the start, but in time, it would.

[Darth Wong]

India has long had fucked-up traditions like its horrific caste system, its tradition of treating widows as if they had already died with their husbands, etc. China, for all its historical problems, never had quite the fucked up culture that India did.

[Norseman]

I do want to poses a question though. For example, Norseman, you and I both come from countries where child labor is emphatically banned, not only illegal but immoral.

The Work Environment Law (Arbeidsmiljøloven) § 11-1 says that children who are under 15 years or obliged to attend school, shall not perform labour that would come in under this law, except cultural or similar work and light work and the child has reached 13 years of age, and work that is part of the child's education or part of practical work training that is authorised by school authorities, and the child has reached 14 years of age. § 11-2 says that the work should not harm your education and regulates how many hours a day and week a child under the age of 18 can work depending on whether it is school season or vacation. In addition the law prohibits nightwork, insists on health control, breaks, and time off.

In short child labour is not banned just heavily regulated. Moreover the laws regulating child labour didn't come about before 1892, indeed child labour in Norway continued well into the 1900s. The reason why is very simple: Norway was dirt poor, those children had to work in order for the family to make a living. High-fallutin ideals had to give way untill you could *afford* to indulge them.

Do you agree with your countries stance? After all, if child labor is a necessary evil, you shouldn't have any problem with it happening to your own country's children,so long as it produces cheap consumer goods that keeps prices down in Western markets, right? However, if you DO think child slavery is wrong in your country, what changes when you cross your border that makes it OK? Are Cambodian or Indian poor children inherently worth less than your own country's poor kids?

I say child labour in poor countries is a necessary evil for the same reason that poor wages, bad work-conditions, and so forth are necessary evils. The welfare state and a regulated work-market is a luxury that only rich states can afford, thus you no longer need child labour or poor wages. The abstract worth of the children or the workers simply doesn't enter into the equation.

[K. A. Pital]

In short child labour is not banned just heavily regulated.

I think you're being deliberately stupid here and distorting the term "child labour" to encompass non-dangerous, non-harming cultural activity and training along with draining, health-ruining exploitive labour, which has been the historical connotation of "child labour" and is exactly the kind of labour being discussed.

The reason why is very simple: Norway was dirt poor, those children had to work in order for the family to make a living.

No, the reason was a tradition of including children as labourers which lingered on from the agricultural society. As soon as that was demolished along with it's repugnant traditions, child labour was banned in all industrial nations.

I say child labour in poor countries is a necessary evil for the same reason that poor wages, bad work-conditions, and so forth are necessary evils.

And why are they necessary evils?

The welfare state and a regulated work-market is a luxury that only rich states can afford

That is a lie. It is not only achievable in principle for a poor (but industrializing) state to achieve a welfare state and regulated work market, but it's achievable in practice.

The abstract worth of the children or the workers simply doesn't enter into the equation.

What a load of crap. The "abstract" worth of a child whose future productivity as an adult is ruined by heavy underage labour is not "abstract" any more, even in purely capitalistic terms.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I say child labour in poor countries is a necessary evil for the same reason that poor wages, bad work-conditions, and so forth are necessary evils. The welfare state and a regulated work-market is a luxury that only rich states can afford, thus you no longer need child labour or poor wages. The abstract worth of the children or the workers simply doesn't enter into the equation.

One problem with this. back in that time period, the entire world was that poor. Now, the very factories that the children are toiling away in under slave conditions are owned or contracted by western companies. Companies which essentially compete against eachother to see who can most cheaply and efficiently keep those children enslaved. Said companies could easily provide said children with a decent wage and a means to escape poverty, but it is in their best economic interests not to, and they will fight the local governments tooth and nail to keep it such that they are allowed to do this.

[Norseman]

In short child labour is not banned just heavily regulated.

I think you're being deliberately stupid here and distorting the term "child labour" to encompass non-dangerous, non-harming cultural activity and training along with draining, health-ruining exploitive labour, which has been the historical connotation of "child labour" and is exactly the kind of labour being discussed.

But see here's the thing: The laws also prohibit adults from doing those jobs that will leave you a broken down wreck by the time you reach your fifties. Seriously the past was a really nasty place to live.

The reason why is very simple: Norway was dirt poor, those children had to work in order for the family to make a living.

No, the reason was a tradition of including children as labourers which lingered on from the agricultural society. As soon as that was demolished along with it's repugnant traditions, child labour was banned in all industrial nations.

And this is why American coal mines as late as 1915 used child miners? Incidentally Norway had child labour, in the nasty form, well into the 1900s. In 1915 for one there were over 4500 child labourers employed in industrial labour.

There's a *reason* that Communism and Socialism were so popular in Norway you know, conditions were absolutely horrible. If you listen to the old people talking they will mention outright battles between workers and the police, the military, and even hired goons from the employers. All of this of course is brushed over, since the modern Norwegian establishment doesn't like to talk about the fact that it was the threat of bloodshed and revolution that caused reform, not nice political compromises.

The abstract worth of the children or the workers simply doesn't enter into the equation.

What a load of crap. The "abstract" worth of a child whose future productivity as an adult is ruined by heavy underage labour is not "abstract" any more, even in purely capitalistic terms.

When the choice is between working and starving then the right to not work becomes fairly abstract.

[Axis Kast]

Wrong. Sweatshops are owned by western companies, or at least contracted by them. Said western companies could easily afford to give said child laborers (or adult laborers) a decent wage and decent living conditions. They dont. They give their workers just enough to keep them from starving to death, and then dont even provide safe working conditions because if they DO provide safe conditions they will be out-competed by companies that dont.

Haven't GM, Chrysler, and Ford Motor all collapsed precisely because of the massive burden of generous pension plans? Furthermore, even if one mandates that sweatshop labor be paid a living wage, which would represent only a meager fraction of the cost of employee compensation in the United States, who will audit and enforce these standards in foreign countries where the rule of law is rarely concretized? Finally, if an American firm must pay "living wages," why wouldn't foreign firms undersell them successfully, then gradually force them out of the marketplace? Nobody buys American cars because folks in Detroit get a good, fair deal out of a Buick.

I think the movement for change has to begin simultaneously on two fronts: among the leadership in the third world, which may mean a prior campaign to educate future populists, and among the American and Western publics, which are presently apathetic.

[Norseman]

I think the movement for change has to begin simultaneously on two fronts: among the leadership in the third world, which may mean a prior campaign to educate future populists, and among the American and Western publics, which are presently apathetic.

The best movement for change is to make the poor countries richer by investing in them and trading with them, when they start getting money and food in their bellies they will begin worrying about things other than staying alive. Mandatory basic education and providing food in school would both be of great help if you want to do something right now, so if you want to give to charity find ones that delivers that.

[PainRack]

Do you seriously think that the majority of child labourers have what you could a decent living, even by the standards of a third world country?

That will become an entirely response from me altogether.
The CURRENT standards of child labourers is absymal. Such labour SHOULD be banned, until something equivalent to the Poor laws in Britain comes about and improve working conditions, along with decreased hours and labour.

[PainRack]

Legal factors can mean a lot here, and it's stupid to just call it "truth of life", nature of capitalism or some other bullshit. How would you explain that China used less child labour than India despite being relatively of the same poverty level when both nations starte their thorny paths to industrialism in the early 1950s? I'm all ears.

Just playing devil advocate here, but a plausible explaination is the massive use of what was essentially adult slave labour, in the form of re-education camps for political activists. Not to mention the massive conscription of all forms of labour, including children to meet Mao Great Leap Forward targets....

I think you are ignoring the huge amount of abuse Mao DID do to his adult and yes, children population.