Child Labour Paradox

The Child Labour Paradox


Introduction
In a perfect world, there would be no poverty and no need for children to occasionally contribute to their households. Policy makers tend to believe that this world already exist and fail to take into account the realities of poverty when they are busy writing the laws. Child labour is often seen as a problem found only in developing countries and some even go as far as using the level of dissociation as a measurement for modernity.

Discussion

Ignoring the realities of poverty stricken societies will cause more harm than the child labour associated with it. Goverments are placing modern children in a gilded cage where presumably they are to be pampered and well looked after. In theory grants will be given to any family that needs it, thus eliminating the need for children to work. This would leave children free to attend school, get educated and work. Sadly this theory doesn’t translate nearly as well into practice; child support budgets get cut and there’s less and less money to go around. The implications of these factors are far reaching and you end up with a situation where the parents cannot afford to care for their children, the state is offering limited support and it is illegal for the child to work in order to contribute to their own survival. You’re left with a catch twenty two where somewhere along the line someone will be forced to either break the law in some way or starve. These policies also fail to take into account that our notion of “child labour” is not universal, there are societies where children’s work has become a significant part of their developmental process. For Tonga children working on the family farm is more than a chore in order to get some pocket money, it is important for their very survival. In a world of substince farming few can afford the luxury of sitting back and taking it easy till they’re old enough to work for a living. These children make a valuable contribution to their own family’s survival, without which the outcome would be bleak. Thus denying a child’s ability to participate in their own survival by creating value is far more detrimental than allowing them to work. There are even those who actively defend their right to work. However, labour laws were never meant to deny children’s rights, but rather to enforce them and to protect them from exploitation.

Conclusion

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. It is something you hear so often that you fail to take it seriously and the same goes for policy makers. Nobody ever sat down and went on a mission to hurt children with child labour laws, but failing to take into account economic and social factors leaves them at risk of doing just that. The west often forgets that their views of the world are not always those of the world and policy makers could go a long way by acknowledging that. The Tonga boy minding the cattle in the Zambezi Valley is not the same as the boy in rags stitching away in a sweatshop and policies should reflect this difference.

References

Levine,S. 1
eO.1996 ‘Paradox of child labour and Anthropology’ in Annual Review Anthropology 25:237-251