Essay: Child labor ethics

Child labor might seem like a clear-cut bad thing from the perspective of most Americans, but when you take a look at the issue at a more in depth look it is actually pretty complicated. Child labor is not ethical, it is the complete opposite though, children should not be forced to be working in dangerous conditions to get pennies and also in most cases give up on education which deprives them of a better, more prosperous life. Though when I was researching the issue people brought up the other side of the argument for why child labor exists, so these are some of the things people brought up to defend it. The developing countries need these companies’ investments because if they don’t have it will go somewhere else and then the countries get no economic stimulation. Also, this article brought up how a company training “Child laborers benefit suppliers in the long term. This mechanism applies to multinational corporations as well. Training new employees always costs resources, and children are more likely to grow up with the employers instead of switching out.”(Hong) Now this argument makes no sense to me, people get training in every single job in they are starting out somewhere and why does a child need to do the job, when in these developing countries there are plenty of people in those countries at appropriate ages whom would love to have a job. The first argument makes a little more sense, because these companies are looking for cheap labor and if these countries can’t provide the cheapest labor, the jobs would just go to another country. Now that a discussed the other side of the argument I will go into explaining why multinational companies hiring underage children in developing countries is unethical.
Employing underage children to do work is unethical because it robs them of a chance at education, it is physically and mentally damaging to children, and the social cost towards the country. “It has been publicly known that child labor reduces children’s school attendance and increases the chance of grade repetition. There is also an inverse relationship found between children’s reading competence and child labor hours.” (Hong) Education is important to everyone, it is what allows people to move up in the world and helps the country. The children are the future, king that needs to be protected on the chess board, if a country’s population is uneducated then the leadership and country is going to fail, because no one knows what to do or how to guide the country. Reading is vitally important, as in every skilled job one is going to need to know how to read, and if you don’t you can’t do your job, and if you don’t have a skilled job or a job that requires higher education the people are only going to be qualified for the job that is paying them nothing. It is highly unethical to deprive people the chance to move up and attain their dreams, and not live in poverty for their entire life. “school fees caused by corruption by officials, in Cambodia’s case. This additional opportunity cost sways the parents even more away from the alternative option of education.” (Hong) This brings up something that is very unethical, countries shouldn’t put up a block to education, but the corruption in some of these countries prevent people from getting something they deserve. The physical and mental pains that children get from child labor is abhorrent and unacceptable to put anyone through, much less children. “The vast majority of child labour is involved in hazardous occupations such as agriculture, mining, manufacture, construction bonded child labour, domestic work and fishing. Environmental and occupational conditions can impact on the health and development of the children.” (Osment) Children should not be working in terrible conditions or at all, especially construction, manufacturing and mining. These are very dangerous occupations to well qualified adults in America, and these workers are of appropriate age and skill, plus they know the risks involved and are actually paid at a better rate, than the pennies given to the children. You can have long-term health problems from inhaling noxious gas or poisonous fumes in mining, and if a child is doing this, then it could stunt growth or kill them at young ages. In manufacturing it could be very dangerous as well, as kids might be used to go into tight spaces full grown adults can’t fit in and also working these machines could be very deadly to these kids. Finally, construction how a child should be considered to work in construction makes sense, it is highly dangerous and highly complicated, so I don’t understand how a child understand how to do this job safe, when adults die or get severely injured doing the job. All this leads to the point from this article “Working children are the objects of extreme exploitation in terms of toiling for long hours for minimal pay. Their work conditions are especially severe, often not providing the stimulation for proper physical and mental development. Many of these children endure lives of pure deprivation.” (Siddiqi) Now I will talk about the social cost factor that leads to why underage labor is unethical. “A country can only develop socially through education…Due to this vicious cycle of poverty and less education, child labor practices will be passed down to younger generations, and the country will suffer from less human capital and people who are unable to perform any professional and specialized work.” (Hong) To expand on this an anthropologist conducted a study of indigenous people in Guatemala. The government was going to put bilingual primary schools in the area during the 1970s, the parents were asked how long children should go to school. They said boys should go to school for 3 to 4 years and less for girls. The anthropologists just assumed they didn’t know the value of education and schooling to people. In the 90s the same people came back and asked the same question and this time the parents said that children should stay in school way longer, which they concluded meant the indigenous people learned the value of education and that it actually provides a positive to them as a whole. “Recent evaluations of the bilingual school system confirm this. Repetition and dropout rates have decreased and the rates of promotion have increased.” (Siddiqi) Countries need to invest in the people because that in turn will help the country grow and become better.
Subsequently, child labor is a very unethical practice that should be stopped whether by the countries themselves or by companies threatening to pull out of the counties, leaving them poor and the people angry at the leaders of the country. Also, countries should invest in education, they need to allow people to get primary education at the least, so that the countries futures can be brighter and not remain the same. If companies keep these practices up nothing will change, everything will remain the same both in the country’s economy and the attitudes of the people. Change is necessary and might be rough in the now, but in the long term it will help the country, so they don’t remain a developing country. When looking at the developed countries, the all have similar things in common in regard to this issue, none have child labor and they all provide access to education, without barriers. “Provide subsidies to poor families prone to having working children so they can afford their children’s schooling (income subsidies, nutritional supplements).” (Siddiqi) The only issue with this is the developing countries probably don’t have the money to help pay for such a program, so the money would have to come from other countries to help support them until the countries grow. Still, this is a good way to curb underage labor, as for most parents that put their kids into these situations it comes down to the family needing the money to live. If the government could help these families out and giving them programs that could provide food and basic necessities. If governments did this then children would be able to do other life improving activities. Underage child labor is a disgusting practice and companies and countries should end it and focus on the wellbeing of the people.