However, these critics fail to evaluate the consequences of the prohibition. Over 50,000 children working in Bangladesh were freed after Harkin’s bill came into existence in the US. The stated purpose of the bill is threefold: it seeks to ban any import into the US of products manufactured completely or in part by child labour; to support education, rehabilitation and alternative skills training for displaced child workers; and seeking a trade ban. These children were trapped in a harsh environment with no skills, no education, and no alternatives. The dismissal of the children by the factories as a result of protecting their economy tied to the US brought untold misery to the children and their families. Momen (1993:22) argued that sending off the children without an alternative might lead them to participate in anti-social behaviour.
The proponents of a ban on child labour failed to recognise the fact that the age at which children engaged in work activities either for commercial or domestic purpose depended solely on their social background. However, engaging children in some work activities free of hazard to their life development can be a learning ground of responsibility and development of skills that will be useful to them and the world at large. Child abuse in all ramifications should be avoided, while attention should be directed to child neglect. By neglecting children in terms of failure to provide them with a meaningful and purposeful life, development and empowerment poses a great danger not to the child alone but the world in general. Children who are engaged in a productive life at an early age through child labour often grow up to be useful to the society in their capacity rather than being a security threat and social misfits, but at the same time the child could become an unskilled adult and will be trapped in poorly paid jobs for the rest of his life.
In fact there is no law banning the engagement of children in non-hazardous work that is beneficial in terms of economic and social development. Article 32 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) proposed that “states parties recognise the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or interfere with the child’s education or to be harmful to the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development”. Likewise, with the issue of teenage mothers which is on the increase, the practice is not outlawed but morally condemned by some authorities. Teenage pregnancy is a teenage or underage girl becoming pregnant between the ages of thirteen and seventeen years. These children have not yet reached legal adulthood but to some societies (sub-Saharan African countries for instance) early pregnancy is a blessing, while in developed countries it is seen as unplanned. A published survey showed the US recording the highest figure, while South Korea is the lowest in the world. Britain has the highest figure in Western Europe with 90,000 babies born to teenage mothers annually (BBC News, 06/1999). Similarly, in Bangladesh, China, Mali and Niger, more than 60 per cent of women entered into marriage before their eighteenth year and the causes are attributed to poverty, gender discrimination, and social effects. Also the Northern part of Nigeria welcomes early marriage and pregnancy of under eighteen years old child.
It is worth mentioning that according to some critics no single parent would desire to send their underage children to work for the survival of the family but due to the economic conditions they cannot help it. Organisations or individuals that indulge in exploiting children into forced or enslaved work should be condemned and fined.
The issue of child labour is a very sensitive and complicated one and it is very easy for the West to draw a moral line which makes the practice look unacceptable. However, the plight of people from developing countries, mostly from the poor, under-developed countries, must be taken into consideration because children in labour play an important economic role, being supportive and contributing to feeding and helping the well being of their families. In fact, children deserve to be cared for and have access to education and good health, so engaging them in employment on a part-time basis in a safe and controlled atmosphere with good standards of health and safety is not bad but a general solution to alleviating poverty. At the same time, every society would like to protect its children from exploitation and oppression in whatever form so as to become useful to society and in turn as the leaders of tomorrow. But in the real socio-economic situation of poor countries prohibiting child labour will create more hardship. Eradicating poverty and implementation of effective policies as alternatives are the only solutions to child labour or else eradication without adequate alternative programmes will do more harm than good. If conditions pose an extreme economic hardship it leaves no alternative for the children to work but the exploitation of working children in whatever form is known as inhumane and should be totally condemned in its entirety. Big brand owners when subcontracting should not be keen only on obtaining cheap services but should ensure their agents satisfy ethical considerations.
Several issues that are yet to be addressed by critics are whether child labour itself is something that negatively affects the child and why; another is whether a hazardous working environment and child labour are inherently linked with each other and lastly, will the banning of child labour have any positive outcome on poor households. If teenage pregnancy is seen not to be right so child labour should also be but both tend to be left as individual moral decisions.
Governments of developing countries should introduce policy programmes to create labour-intensive economic growth and to provide poor people with access to a productive life and basic amenities. Policy programmes must be designed to accommodate the immediate needs of the child and their families while compulsory education for children from six years old and creation of additional skill training programmes will be useful. Organisations can as a matter of fact make it explicit in their formal policies that: all forms of child labour are prohibited; ensure that children who are in the service already are transferred to free, full-time education; ensure only children from fifteen to eighteen years who are permitted according to international agreements (ILO Convention) to work are not engaged in hazardous labour; collaborate through good corporate social responsibilities initiatives to assist local and national governments in achieving full-time education for all; and examine and monitor its supply chain system.
OLANREWAJU USMAN
