Child Labours???

When talk about business ethics, I will think about the child labors because the NIKE factory has been the news about using the child labors to manufacture the Sport Shoe. They are aims for the quantity but not the quality of the shoes. And yet they are producing the Sport shoes with unethical mind-set. Nevertheless, they are promoting the shoes with the charity events. They are really the ‘Money Mind –Set Organization’. 

For the child labors, I will think of the poem, ‘the cry of the child’. Some of the part of the poem that describes the heart suffers moment of the child as below:

‘Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,

Ere the sorrow comes with years….

They are weeping in the playtime of the others

In the country of the free….

‘How long’, they say, ‘how long, O cruel nation,

Will you stand, to move the world, on a child’s heart?’

BY Elizabeth Barret Browning, 1843. In her poem, she expressed the bitter life of the child in the sense of being a child labor. 

According to U.S. Department of Labor’s (2012) stated that Child labor under international standards means all work performed by a person who is below the age of 15. However, some countries practice the law which the child labor is the workforce below the age of 18. In the context of International standards that the person who age below 18 and perform the following practice:

i.                     All forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale or trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom, or forced or compulsory labor, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict

ii.                   The use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution, for the production of pornography or for pornographic purposes

iii.                  The use, procuring or offering of a child for illicit activities in particular for the production and trafficking of drugs

iv.                 Work which, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children

Developing nations and globalization has led to the consequent exploitation of labor especially with children. The work condition for the child labors is very bad and is normally below the safety standards, the job is insecure, low wages and low standards of living. The employer is unethical and they ignored the human right of the children.

In my view of the human right of children, the employer should not employ the child labors. Child labor is terribly harmful for children both physically and mentally as it stops them form receiving a decent of education. They will not have a fun and enjoying childhood period. The children will just know how to work and earn money with those terribly experiences since their young time. No one in the develop country will know their bitter and suffering childhood’s histories.

The causes and beginnings of the child labors started this process were enflamed from drastic change of economic situation; poverty and starvation were the primary result. For surviving in the change world, the little children have to stand out and work. As a matter of fact, child labor first began during the period of urbanization, industrialization and war during the early 1900’s. Industrialization caused child labor when power driven machines replaced hand labor for the making of manufactured items and a new source of labor to run the machines was needed. Children have the high potential because they learned the operation of the machines is faster than the old folk. The cost of hiring the child labor is far cheaper than hiring the skillful workers or adult workers. The unethical employers trained the child labors to be loyal to the company since their young time because the children are easy to be educated since they know nothing about the changing world.

In addition, wars occurred also bring the children into the dark side of the shadow where they have to take part directly in hostilities by being child soldiers. Child soldiers are normally used in the support roles such as spies and messengers. Due to the globalization, the percentage of child labors has been decrease in certain extends but in the developing countries, they still have increased in the percentage of child labors. There is millions of children work just to help their families but not in harmful or exploitative ways.

According to ILO (2012) states that about 150 million children aged 5 to 14 which is as high as 16 percent of all children in the age group, are being involved in child labor. This group of children is the group that not receiving proper nutrition or care due to most of them looks so sick. They are denied the chance to be children. The ILO estimates that 1.2 million children are trafficked each year, and this act has been internationally recognized as a major human right violation. It has been occurred throughout the region in the world.

The pity and helpless children are moved around the world as they are packed and ship through the Cargo. They are beings sold, bought and exchanged like the goods in the market. Then the people will send them to different regions or workplaces to work. Most of the child labors are working in the agriculture sector. Children working with the agriculture must face the longest hours of extreme temperatures as the workplace is under the direct exposure of sunlight. Besides that their health are at risk because they will be directed the exposure of the pesticides and insecticides. The child labors is that famous in the agriculture sector because they are cheap labor, the employers have just needed to pay little amount of salary or some even not paying a single cent. The child labors have inadequate food, water and sanitation.

The agriculture sector is not the worst sector to work because the child labors who work in the mining and quarrying will be more suffered. They have to be suffered from extremely high illness and injury during the work in progress. What they do in the mining or quarrying? They will require breaking up rocks, and wash, sieve and carrying ore. Many of the child labors are require working underground setting the explosives and carrying loads. It is really unfair to the children as the highly dangerous tasks are being carried by the children. The adults should be the one who responsible for this kind of task.

Last form of child labor is prostitution. This is the official and commercial sexual exploitation of children especially the female children. A minor group of child who are less than 18 years old performs the services of prostitution just for the self-financial benefit. Furthermore, there are situations in which the people travel to foreign countries in order to avoid law against the child prostitution which are present in their country. This is so called the child sex tourism.

As the conclusion of the blog, I would like to rise again how serious if the children has no childhood experiences. They will not know what fun is, what the enjoyable moment is and what the enjoyable experience is for their childhood. They will bring the sadness and hard work from suffer life into the end of their life even the coffin. So, the child protection association has to protect the human right of the children.  

References

U.S. Department of Labor’s (2012). List of Goods Produced By Child Labor or Forced Labor. Published by Department of Labor, USA