| From the comfort of their plush offices and five to six | | | | they have a right to survive. You can't just say they |
| figure salaries, self-appointed NGO's often denounce | | | | can't work, you have to provide |
| child labor as their employees rush from one five star | | | | alternatives."Regrettably, the debate is so laden with |
| hotel to another, $3000 subnotebooks and PDA's in | | | | emotions and self-serving arguments that the facts |
| hand. The hairsplitting distinction made by the ILO | | | | are often overlooked.The outcry against soccer balls |
| between "child work" and "child labor" conveniently | | | | stitched by children in Pakistan led to the relocation of |
| targets impoverished countries while letting its budget | | | | workshops ran by Nike and Reebok. Thousands lost |
| contributors - the developed ones - | | | | their jobs, including countless women and 7000 of their |
| off-the-hook.Reports regarding child labor surface | | | | progeny. The average family income - anyhow |
| periodically. Children crawling in mines, faces ashen, | | | | meager - fell by 20 percent. Economists Drusilla |
| body deformed. The agile fingers of famished infants | | | | Brown, Alan Deardorif, and Robert Stern observe |
| weaving soccer balls for their more privileged | | | | wryly:"While Baden Sports can quite credibly claim that |
| counterparts in the USA. Tiny figures huddled in | | | | their soccer balls are not sewn by children, the |
| sweatshops, toiling in unspeakable conditions. It is all | | | | relocation of their production facility undoubtedly did |
| heart-rending and it gave rise to a veritable | | | | nothing for their former child workers and their |
| not-so-cottage industry of activists, commentators, | | | | families."Such examples abound. Manufacturers - |
| legal eagles, scholars, and opportunistically sympathetic | | | | fearing legal reprisals and "reputation risks" |
| politicians.Ask the denizens of Thailand, sub-Saharan | | | | (naming-and-shaming by overzealous NGO's) - engage |
| Africa, Brazil, or Morocco and they will tell you how | | | | in preemptive sacking. German garment workshops |
| they regard this altruistic hyperactivity - with suspicion | | | | fired 50,000 children in Bangladesh in 1993 in anticipation |
| and resentment. Underneath the compelling arguments | | | | of the American never-legislated Child Labor |
| lurks an agenda of trade protectionism, they | | | | Deterrence Act.Quoted by Wasserstein, former |
| wholeheartedly believe. Stringent - and expensive - | | | | Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, notes:"Stopping child |
| labor and environmental provisions in international | | | | labor without doing anything else could leave children |
| treaties may well be a ploy to fend off imports based | | | | worse off. If they are working out of necessity, as |
| on cheap labor and the competition they wreak on | | | | most are, stopping them could force them into |
| well-ensconced domestic industries and their political | | | | prostitution or other employment with greater personal |
| stooges.This is especially galling since the | | | | dangers. The most important thing is that they be in |
| sanctimonious West has amassed its wealth on the | | | | school and receive the education to help them leave |
| broken backs of slaves and kids. The 1900 census in | | | | poverty."Contrary to hype, three quarters of all children |
| the USA found that 18 percent of all children - almost | | | | work in agriculture and with their families. Less than 1 |
| two million in all - were gainfully employed. The | | | | percent work in mining and another 2 percent in |
| Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional laws banning child | | | | construction. Most of the rest work in retail outlets and |
| labor as late as 1916. This decision was overturned | | | | services, including "personal services" - a euphemism |
| only in 1941.The GAO published a report last week in | | | | for prostitution. UNICEF and the ILO are in the throes |
| which it criticized the Labor Department for paying | | | | of establishing school networks for child laborers and |
| insufficient attention to working conditions in | | | | providing their parents with alternative employment.But |
| manufacturing and mining in the USA, where many | | | | this is a drop in the sea of neglect. Poor countries |
| children are still employed. The Bureau of Labor | | | | rarely proffer education on a regular basis to more |
| Statistics pegs the number of working children | | | | than two thirds of their eligible school-age children. This |
| between the ages of 15-17 in the USA at 3.7 million. | | | | is especially true in rural areas where child labor is a |
| One in 16 of these worked in factories and | | | | widespread blight. Education - especially for women - |
| construction. More than 600 teens died of work-related | | | | is considered an unaffordable luxury by many |
| accidents in the last ten years.Child labor - let alone | | | | hard-pressed parents. In many cultures, work is still |
| child prostitution, child soldiers, and child slavery - are | | | | considered to be indispensable in shaping the child's |
| phenomena best avoided. But they cannot and should | | | | morality and strength of character and in teaching him |
| not be tackled in isolation. Nor should underage labor | | | | or her a trade."The Economist" elaborates:"In Africa |
| be subjected to blanket castigation. Working in the gold | | | | children are generally treated as mini-adults; from an |
| mines or fisheries of the Philippines is hardly | | | | early age every child will have tasks to perform in the |
| comparable to waiting on tables in a Nigerian or, for | | | | home, such as sweeping or fetching water. It is also |
| that matter, American restaurant.There are gradations | | | | common to see children working in shops or on the |
| and hues of child labor. That children should not be | | | | streets. Poor families will often send a child to a richer |
| exposed to hazardous conditions, long working hours, | | | | relation as a housemaid or houseboy, in the hope that |
| used as means of payment, physically punished, or | | | | he will get an education."A solution recently gaining |
| serve as sex slaves is commonly agreed. That they | | | | steam is to provide families in poor countries with |
| should not help their parents plant and harvest may be | | | | access to loans secured by the future earnings of |
| more debatable.As Miriam Wasserman observes in | | | | their educated offspring. The idea - first proposed by |
| "Eliminating Child Labor", published in the Federal Bank | | | | Jean-Marie Baland of the University of Namur and |
| of Boston's "Regional Review", second quarter of | | | | James A. Robinson of the University of California at |
| 2000, it depends on "family income, education policy, | | | | Berkeley - has now permeated the mainstream.Even |
| production technologies, and cultural norms." About a | | | | the World Bank has contributed a few studies, notably, |
| quarter of children under-14 throughout the world are | | | | in June, "Child Labor: The Role of Income Variability and |
| regular workers. This statistic masks vast disparities | | | | Access to Credit Across Countries" authored by |
| between regions like Africa (42 percent) and Latin | | | | Rajeev Dehejia of the NBER and Roberta Gatti of the |
| America (17 percent).In many impoverished locales, | | | | Bank's Development Research Group.Abusive child |
| child labor is all that stands between the family unit and | | | | labor is abhorrent and should be banned and |
| all-pervasive, life threatening, destitution. Child labor | | | | eradicated. All other forms should be phased out |
| declines markedly as income per capita grows. To | | | | gradually. Developing countries already produce millions |
| deprive these bread-earners of the opportunity to lift | | | | of unemployable graduates a year - 100,000 in |
| themselves and their families incrementally above | | | | Morocco alone. Unemployment is rife and reaches, in |
| malnutrition, disease, and famine - is an apex of | | | | certain countries - such as Macedonia - more than one |
| immoral hypocrisy.Quoted by "The Economist", a | | | | third of the workforce. Children at work may be |
| representative of the much decried Ecuador Banana | | | | harshly treated by their supervisors but at least they |
| Growers Association and Ecuador's Labor Minister, | | | | are kept off the far more menacing streets. Some |
| summed up the dilemma neatly: "Just because they | | | | kids even end up with a skill and are rendered |
| are under age doesn't mean we should reject them, | | | | employable. |