Should We Buy Products Involved With Child Labor?

This is why we should boycotted and there should not be child labor. To begin with child labor is very dangerous to the kids. In the story Why Are Your Clothes So Cheap by Kristin and Gini and they states “ A child's physical or mental well being is in danger” (Kristin and Gini 112). “The factory went up into flames”

However, addressing the problem of child labor will require more than recognizing its connection to poverty. Governments, human rights organizations, labor leaders, corporations, and health professionals must all work together to find effective ways to ensure that the world's children are educated and not exploited in jobs in multinational or illegal industries. By proposing this act, it would prohibit U.S. imports of goods produced by children laborer. Such legislation would help third world countries enforce laws against child labor; ultimately, it would protect the world's youngsters from the abusive and hazardous conditions often found in factories that rely on low-wage labor. It would curb poverty by getting these kids out of hazardous, abusive working conditions and into school where they may receive an education and contribute productively to their economy. We look out for animals and prisoners, but fail to protect youngsters from exploitive and abusive labor.

Child labor is a serious problem that affects children from third-world countries all over the world. These children are exploited by multinational corporations ,for their cheap labor all over the world. People, then buy products that come at a cheaper price, from these multinational corporations.These children are often overworked and treated unfairly. People need to stop buying items from countries that endorse child labor.

Child Labor Your child is the person you have taken care of since birth. That does not change around the globe. What does change is how the child lives their life. Do they spend their evenings dancing to a popular tune bought on a $200 iPod, enough to buy food for a month for a poverty stricken family, or sewing the seams of shoes together so they can earn money, only for some child the same age to wear it once and forget about it. Would you stop buying these products just because they were made by someone around the age of your child?

“The main cause for children doing work is poverty,” says Nadira Faulmuller in “This Company is Employing Children”. People should buy products made with child labor. Buying these products will support the many families of the working children, since the reason children are working is poverty. Not buying the products can create more problems for the children working. Even though some say that working children are robbed of their education, individuals should buy products made with the use of child labor because hard labor has the ability to motivate children to get an education.

“A soul-searching debate is now coursing through the country: Child labor is universally condemned, but is it fair to multinationals to cut and run when incidents arise of children working?” writes David Montero in his article titled “Is Doing the Right Thing Wrong?” While child labor in the United States (U.S.) is not accepted, it still runs rampant in second and third world countries, which is why children often find their way into factories. When this happens people often boycott the companies where this is found, but boycotting is not the way to go. Just boycotting companies doesn’t do anything, and can often hurt the very children people are trying to help. Then there’s the actual legal workers, boycotting a company for having child labor has negative effects on the legal workers and can often derail needed progress that these second and third world countries desperately need. People often jump to boycott

One advantage of globalization is that it has tried to decrease the amount of child labor in Third World countries. Divakaruni states in her essay that, “Some days back, the House passed a bill stating that the United States would no longer permit the import of goods from factories where forced or indentured child labor was used” (340). Although this bill seems like a great idea, Americans do not truly see all the reasons behind using child labor. America is significantly different than Third World countries. One of the main reasons for parents selling their children was because they could not afford to take care of them or keep them properly nourished, for it was not for the sole purpose to get rid of their children. The children’s strong work ethic provided money to live and feed themselves. However, the author states that this bill is “of no use unless it goes hand

The next time when you are out on your shopping trip, chances you may have support a business that exploits children. It is very disturbing and heartbreaking to learn many children are chained to looms for 12 hours a day because families need to have their child bringing home a small amount of moneys. Child labor has always been a difficult subject to address, the topic have become much more complicated and prolific.

Many of the products that are used and consumed in the United States are made in other countries. One of the main reasons for multinational corporations to produce goods in countries other than the United States is the cost of production. It is far cheaper to produce goods such as blue jeans, paper goods, and plastic toys to name a few. In recent years the conditions in sweatshops in China, Japan, and elsewhere have garnered public outcry from Countries like the U.S. and most of Europe. The main contention, child labor in dangerous and horrid conditions. However one often overlooked example of child labor in sweatshop-like conditions exists were many people never thought. The chocolate we eat. “From 2013 to 2014 more than 1.1 million children in the Ivory Coast were engaged in the most common Worst Forms of Child Labor as recognized by the United Nations… up from 791,181 children from 2008 to 2009” (Berman, 2015). The benefactors of this child labor are huge multinational enterprises such as Nestle, Mars Inc., and The Hershey Co.

While the number of children illegally working within the United States is exceedingly rare the consumer products imported from countries that utilize children in their labor forces is overwhelming. While we protect our own children, we have effectively turned a blind eye to children in developing countries. This has allowed countless companies and corporations to exploit the labor of children for profit while the US Dollar funds their operations and lines the pockets of a few. It is my opinion that this issue requires global pressure from developed nations for the sake of the children involved. The developed nations of the world are effectively the consumers of the goods produced in the developing world. We have the knowledge base required to understand the inhuman practice of child labor and should not stand by complacently allowing developing countries to exploit children as cheap labor while we fund such

Children are less biologically mature and less physically strong, which makes them easier to get injured. Due to the danger and chemicals they face in sweatshops, children could develop many diseases as they grow up. The developmental risk factors for children who work in factories are, rapid skeletal growth, greater risk of hearing and vision loss, higher chemical absorption rates, lower heat tolerance. They also have no access to clean water, hand washing, and toilets, and they are exposed to pesticides and sharp tools. Children who work long hours on a regular basis could harm their social and education development. And the reason why injuries happen among the young workers then adults is the lack of experience. According to Clark, “ Children are more likely to trip or get caught in machinery, and their bodies have more trouble breaking down chemical toxins and excreting them “ ( 1996). Child labor has increased in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Around the world there are an estimation of 200 million child laborers ages 6-15. In pursuit of few dollars, children are being sacrificed, some of them are only five or six years old spending their days working in factories, mines, sweatshops, markets, and building sites or sorting through refuse heaps. Parents feel obligated to invest in their older children’s education expecting them they will help finance their younger brothers and sisters education who are already working. In most part of the world, child labor is illegal in most part of the world, and yet it is increasing in many countries believing children are profitable and are very easy to exploit Since,“ they can be paid less, are easily abused without provoking retaliation and are not organized like adults might be” ( Venter, Lancaster 2000). If people around the world get together to demand the rights of those poor

“This is the main reason why targeted boycotts of the products of child labor turn out to be counterproductive (at least in the short term): they focus, in a limited geographical area, only on the effects of child labor—its products—but typically fail to investigate the structural reasons for the occurrence of child labor—namely, poverty.”

When the United States passed the bill that banned the importation of goods made by child labor, Americans thought that it was a victory for children in third world countries. What Americans neglected to consider was the possible negative side effects that the children were to face. Due to the ban, millions of children have lost their jobs and have been left to starve. Prohibiting theses imported materials is not an effective way to make the lives of working children better. When confronting the controversial issue of child labor, one needs to step into the shoes of the children, diminish child labor stereotypes, and focus on regulations and goals to improve working conditions.

In the United States, child labor and sweatshops are illegal, and society frowns upon any business that exploits children in the production of goods. Though most would say that they would not support a company that uses child labor to produce its goods, almost everyone has, in fact, knowingly or unknowingly, supported these businesses in one way or another. Children are involved in the production of many of the everyday goods we import from overseas, including the manufacturing of clothes, shoes, toys, and sporting equipment, the farming of cocoa, cotton, sugarcane, and bananas, and the mining of coal, diamonds, and gold (The U.S. Dept. of Labor). Often, we are blinded to this fact.

Although in America we have protected our next generation by out lawing child labor, we are constantly helping the growth of child labor in other parts of the world. How you might ask? By buying the products produced through child labor from other countries. As American consumers we need to stop buying products produced by child labor. The sources that I will be analyzing and will provide dates and facts to examine how we in America have increased the buying of products from other countries that have child labor as their number one workforce, how by buying from these countries has hurt Americans, how our import has increased, and exports decreased, and how this has hurt America’s economy dramatically.