Child Labor: Beneficial in Some Circumstances?

Maybe, but they still need a means to survive. Just like all the productive people out there.

 

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Children do not need to be "productive"; they need productive adults/families/societies enfolding them, so that they can quickly grow to become productive to their fullest potentials.

 

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So the "priority" of eliminating poverty gos the way of the "priority" of human rights - and a status quo of degrading poverty without human rights is established and institutionalized.

The local capitalist is perfectly willing to set the terms of survival, if you let them.

 

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Again, true. So what happens to all the children who don't have them? Coming back to the one example I know in depth, my mother lost her home when she lost her father since he was a police officer and lived in officers quarters. Out on the street within days of being orphaned they were shunted from one family to another for months, being a burden which their equally economically disadvantaged families could not support. So my grandmother, young but ill equipped to support three children under the age of 10, put them in a children's home and worked to support them, while living on the streets herself.

The children's home was so poor that starvation and abuse forced them to run away, besides the notion of their mother living on the streets.

What would you suggest these children do, if not work? There is no home, very little education and no means of support.

 

I would work- try to do something for people who are likely to reward and protect me- and not forget that I am a child. Failing success in that, focus on changing circumstances; keep moving; get new people around me. But I was never in such a position, so I can't really say what I would do.

I don't think we disagree much on the options for exploited and impoverished children. I don't even think we disagree in seeing that these millions cannot save themselves- so I'd rather talk about what people like us with more choices can do.

 

Thats easy, of course, one of the things we can do is support NGOs which work to enable local community ventures that can make the lives of these children better. Another direct way to support these children is to provide these homes with material support like books, clothes, food and training in utilising finances and resources to get maximum benefit. You'd be surprised how far you can stretch a rupee when you put your mind to it. Another essential need is for medical services, doctors and dentists who donate their time for free clinics, for instance, go a long way towards making their lives more stable and healthy. Its not just children but also women who need such help. Helping women ensures better families in the future, since women invest more in families than men do [both personally as well as economically].

We are all capable of making personal choices and one of my own is to never look away when faced with someone in need of aid.

 

The question at hand was not what the children should do. They are not running this show.

They have carte blanche - anything they do to survive is OK.

The question is what the adults should do. And establishing industrial child labor as an institutionalized means of survival for children is not "beneficial in some circumstances". It is a political and economic blunder of large proportion.

 

Children who have no productive adults around them are forced to take over decision making. Otherwise there would be no issue to discuss.

What should adults do, in your opinion? What would you do, for instance, faced with such a situation before you?

What provision would you make for such a family?

 

Beg to differ. There is plenty to discuss in the decision making of adults, and there is seldom the absence of adults implied - there would be no work, without them, eh?

Child labor implies adult employment of children.

 

So lets hear it. You are faced with a few children with no visible means of support. You can either send them to one of the homes above or find them means of self support. The only other option you have is to pretend you didn't see them.

What decision do you make? Are there any other options besides the ones outlined above for an individual who wants to make a difference?

 

No I'm not. I am faced with the question of whether or not to support allowing industrial capitalists to base their production of goods on child labor.

 

Well in case you think of practical solutions to the everyday realities I address, feel free to share them. The way I see it, even if Gap Kids did not hire those children for 6p every 16 hours and even if those children were not sold for bonded labour for 1000 rupees, they would still need to eat.

 

The practical solutions to the everyday realities I was addressing are first in line. Your hypotheticals somewhere later.

The general discovery of others, historically, has been that children are much easier to feed in industrial economies in which people like the Gap business plan developers are jailed for their crimes.

 

A magic wand would certainly come in handy now and again

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But since that is not an option, I prefer feasible solutions to idealistic happy endings. I would like to see managed child labour rather than banned child labour, options for vocational training where options are limited. Most of the children employed in the labour industry are already learning a trade, what would benefit them is legislation requiring them to be educated and fed and paid a stipend commensurate with their efforts with reasonable hours and efforts involved.

Where has this discovery been made? All industrial nations are built on slave labour and support their lifestyles by ensuring the deprivation of other societies.

 

If GAP can educate and feed them on the productivity of "reasonable hours" etc, GAP can hire their parents to do it - cheaper.

So why settle for the degradation, when you can have regular civilization?

Bullshit.

 

Assuming they have parents who will support them. 80% of children who work in labour are abused by parents. Many of them are victims of their own families and are sold for labour. If they are not sold for work, they are sold for begging or prostitution. Children are a black market commodity in poor nations, which is why there are so many of them.

Denial does not alter reality. Go shopping one of these days and see where most goods are produced for your society to consume.

 

Child labor societies are indeed degraded. That will not change by "managing" the child labor - the underlying economic reality is not alterable by liberal fantasy of that kind.

Assertion does not alter reality.

That trend is not supporting, but is instead eroding, my society. What built it was quite different.

Your child labor and other degradations, exploited by piles of money, is capable of ruining more societies than just your own.

 

Perhaps you might have a second dekko at the corpses of children worked to death in order to build the city of New York. Or the contribution of child labour to the global industry, including US imports. From the fingerprints of children on pots in thirteenth century Germany, to the four year olds earning their keep in eighteenth century England, to the five year olds stitching clothes for Gap in India, industrial society is the biggest employer of children in the world.

We are not in a new place in India, but on a road well travelled before:

http://www.faqs.org/childhood/Wh-Z-and-other-topics/Work-and-Poverty.html

We have yet to reach that point in time. Children are still in factories making rugs and clothes for developed nations.

There are still plenty of poor nations to exploit, even for those who pay lip service to childhood in developed societies. When we run out of poor societies, thats when we will really be valuing human beings and children.

 

The existence of child labor, past and present, was not at issue. It's contribution to the prosperity and the "building" of wealthy societies was the issue.

We all had malaria, as well. It was not credited with building our prosperity.

What time would that be?

"Managing" a rolling disaster will impede the onset of better times.

The exploitation of child labor in poor countries is not contributing to the prosperity of the wealthy countries. It is eroding it.

 

If its eroding it, that because prosperous societies built on the deprivation of others become unproductive in the long term when all their labour has been exported. When the developed societies exported their child labour the workhouse children of England became the bonded labourers of India. Perhaps, when we value our children more and other societies less, we can advance by exporting our labour requirements to some lesser societies.