Child Labour: No easy answers

Knee-jerk reactions may salve western consumer consciences but leave child labourers facing worse dangers than before

By Bernard Thompson

Appeared in The Big Issue in Scotland, Issue 357 

 When it comes to social issues, the topic of child labour tends to unite opinions as few other subjects can. Virtually everyone believes that it is wrong and that all possible steps should be taken to eradicate it.

Many of us have been appalled to find that major British companies have stocked clothing manufactured by children who, in the west, could expect to divide their time between school and play.

Such sentiments were certainly uppermost in the mind of Senator Bill Harkin when, in 1993, he introduced a Bill to restrict the import of goods produced with child labour to the United States of America. In doing so, he was merely reflecting the widely held view of an increasingly aware American public.

The success of the Bill had an immediate impact. In Bangladesh, child labour was withdrawn from the country's garment industry. That seemed like an achievement at the time but, in Bangladesh, the response was less than positive. The people who were most dismayed were not the garment factory owners; they were the country's trade unionists.

Far from contributing to a utopian existence for the children where they could invest their energies in a sound education, the General Secretary of the NationalGarment Workers Federation of Bangladesh, Amirul Haque Amin, described a more troubling picture of life after Harkin.

"Before the Harkin Bill, the Government estimated that there were 60,000 - 70,000 children in the garments industry. They were removed from the factories - a fine achievement," said Amin.

"But only 8,500 school places were created. What happened to the other children? They are on the streets or they are stone breaking or working in more hazardous conditions."

Amin works closely with the anti-poverty campaigning organisation, War on Want, which is now recommending a different approach to the blanket boycotts that are regularly called for.

War on Want describes these as "sticking plaster solutions", arguing that, while easing the consciences of the western consumer, boycotts can actually harm the children they

seek to support. This is the message they hope to convey in their "Child Labour…the Whole Picture" campaign.

It should be made clear that, like the International Labour Organisation, War on Want is firmly opposed to child labour. However, WoW differs from the ILO on their approaches to the problem. While the ILO sees the issue as a major contributor to world poverty, WoW note that poverty itself also necessitates children making an economic contribution to many homes in Africa and Asia.

Their argument is essentially that boycotts can only affect the export industries, in which most of the work takes place in people's homes. To remove the opportunity for children to work in relative safety, without providing alternatives, is to condemn the children to even greater dangers and penury: hazardous industrial work, destitution or sexual exploitation.

Picking up on the Bangladeshi example, War on Want Campaign Officer, Nick Dearden, argues that some tolerance of child labour is simply the least damaging option for the children: "You can clearly see by looking anywhere in Dhaka that the alternatives are pretty awful - street children who literally sleep in the middle of huge roads, some breaking bricks in the boiling heat."

It is clearly with reluctance that Dearden argues for a cautious approach: "Most child labour is actually carried out in rural areas as part of a working family. You can't really say it's preferable it's just the only option. But the issue is about how we phase out child labour in the long-term. Of course education remains the goal."

The merits of the managed phase-out seem to be supported by the experience in Pakistan, where 75% of the world's footballs are produced for companies such as Nike, Adidas and Reebok.

A public outcry followed revelations that 3.5 million Pakistani children between 5 and 14 worked up to 12-hour days, for as little as six US cents per hour.

But little credence was given to those who argued that football manufacturing was less harmful than other major Pakistani industries, such as brick-making or surgical instrument manufacture. A major international effort resulted in the Atlanta Agreement to eradicate child labour in Pakistan's football industry within 18 months.

However, many families suffered worrying hardships as a result. In 1999, 16 months after the project started, a Save the Children study, found that, wages decreased by approximately 50% and families involved in the industry had less meals per day than before.

Most of the children who lost their jobs were left without education, many then working in conditions that exposed them to extreme heat, toxic substances, risk of particle inhalation and debt-bondage.

In the cases of the Bangladeshi and Pakistani examples, the will to act seems to have overridden the practical considerations of cause and effect. Nick Dearden can sympathise with this mindset.

As he says, "I think that people are really anxious to DO something, and that's understandable. When I go out to talk about the issue, people's first question is always 'what can I do?' And their immediate impulse is to boycott of course. You don't want your money going on something that's been made by child labourers."

But, as the campaign title suggests, this reaction only addresses part of the story. "Our partners feel frustrated," says Dearden, "because it isn't good enough for people to simply say 'I don't want my life or money tainted by association with child labour' but not to mind that, in many parts of the world, child labour will continue, probably in a worse form.

"When the Harkin Bill was going through, many consumers got fired up about child labour and threatened boycotts and so on," says Dearden, "But almost no-one came back to the issue later to say - 'What's happening to those children now? How are they living now?'"

Like the ILO, War on Want sees education provision and collective representation of workers as major steps towards eradicating child labour and the poverty associated with it.

War on Want insists, economic aid must be given to families and trade unions supported, to ensure decent pay and conditions for adults thus eliminating the need for their children to work. They argue further that governments in the developing world must be given assistance in expanding education.

Where War on Want differs slightly from some other organisations is in tolerating the less damaging forms of child labour until suitable support mechanisms can be employed to

ensure that the children do not suffer.

Nick Dearden is conscious of a certain hypocrisy demonstrated by many of those in the developed world, "There is a double standard. When I was in Bangladesh, my first response was 'this is how I imagine the Industrial Revolution looked in the West'. Our industry was built in very similar conditions - child labour, endless working days, appalling conditions, virtually no wages and shortened lives.

"Without organised labour we wouldn't be living the way we do now. The same applies to Bangladesh, which is why War on Want believes the central element of our efforts has to be strengthening the workers' movement on the ground there."

He goes on to explain that "Boycotting - unless specifically requested by workers - is almost always likely to hinder the trade union movement. In fact, one important thing we can do is actually put pressure on companies not to boycott, but to stay in a country and improve working rights and conditions."

Both Nick Dearden and Amirul Haque Amin make a strong case for reassessing the easy answers to the issue of child poverty - to shop elsewhere and forget about it.

It takes more effort than many people are willing to give to actively lobby companies to continue dealing with developing countries but provide fair pay and conditions coupled with economic support for social provision.

And it takes a degree of moral courage to be seen to be tolerating an evil, even for the protection of the victims. The fact is, though, that the "sticking plaster solutions" War on Want refers to are clearly inadequate to treat the wounds of the world's poorest nations.