Contributed by Winicel May Castro
Ancheta
Divine Word College of
Laoag, Ilocos Norte, Philippines
Abstract
Child
labor has been considered a serious moral issue that greatly affects the lives
of many children around the world. This paper seeks to provide a profound
understanding of child labor through a comprehensive discussion of its history
and present status, the reasons why it exists, and the ways to curtail its
incidence. Further, this paper attempts to view the ethical concerns of this
phenomenon based on the premises of Utilitarian and Kantian ethics. On the
lenses of Kantian ethics, child labor is morally wrong since it violates the
dignity and disregards the rights of a child. It also emphasizes that children
should not work, no matter how poverty stricken their families might be. On the
contrary, Utilitarian ethics argues that child labor is morally right because
it gives poverty-stricken families a source of income; thus, it brings pleasure
and happiness to the greatest majority.
Keywords:
child
labor, children, Kantian ethics, Utilitarian ethics, happiness, suffering, respect,
dignity, greatest majority, morality
Introduction
Manuel, a five-year old child from Mississippi,
works as a shrimp-picker. At an early age, he is the one providing money to his
family. The money he earns is not sufficient to send him to school. He is
already five years old, yet he cannot understand any word in English.
On the other hand, Juan was recruited from a certain
province and was told by an agency that he would be given a job in Manila.
Because of poverty, he accepted the job. However, when he was already in
Manila, the cannery made him work without pay.
He and the other kids were locked up in the plant. Further, he was given
leftovers to eat and was maltreated whenever he got sick. In fact, he was not
provided medicines.
Meanwhile, Beth was promised education by an agency;
however, she was employed in a bleach factory and was not paid for her work.
She was also locked up after each work day lasting from 6:00 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Kids were tasked with filling bottles with chlorine bleach. They got the
chlorine from a swimming pool filled with the slippery bleach. The only
protection they wore were rubber shoes which the employer sold to the children
for 40 pesos. In an interview, Beth said that her eyes hurt because of the
chemicals. She added that there was even a time that she was being fed
vegetables with worms.
These pieces of information about the three Manuel,
Juan, and Beth are actually true. Fortunately, they were already rescued by
authorities. Unfortunately, there are still millions of children around the
world that are believed to be engaged in hazardous situations or conditions,
such as working with chemicals and pesticides in agriculture or working with
dangerous machinery. They are everywhere but invisible, toiling as domestic
servants in homes, laboring behind the walls of workshops, hidden from view in
plantations. They are deprived of enjoying their childhood which is considered
a vital and powerful experience in each individual's lifetime.
Despite the harm that is brought about by child
labor to many children, several people still claim that child labor is
acceptable and moral, especially to impoverished families. In spite of the laws
that exist to protect their rights, these child laborers opt to work for their
families with the hope that they can improve their conditions.
This is the reality that we have to be aware of. But,
is it still possible for us to eradicate child labor? Can we still do something
to save these children from the hands of the wicked? Or shall we continuously
allow child labor to exist since it can help poor families and many companies?
Is it acceptable that we let them be continuously manipulated by others to make
profit for themselves?
Child labor is great issue not to be ignored
nowadays. It has caused many problems to the welfare of children around the
globe. It is not just an ordinary issue but a moral issue. Since it is
considered a global issue, then it is also considered a global moral issue. It
has to be eradicated. The effort to eradicate such problem cannot be done by a
single country but it must be all countries around the globe to have common
agenda how to eradicate it. However, effort can be successful if there is
comprehensive understanding about the issue and know the reason why we should
go against child labor. To complete our view on child labor, the paper would
like to expand our understanding about child labor, the root causes, its
history and its evaluation from moral point of view and based on such moral
understanding, we determine our stand. The view of Immanuel Kant and Jeremy
Bentham are used to base out judgment in evaluating if child
Understanding of Child Labor
Nelson Mandela, former President of South Africa,
once said, “There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way
in which it treats its children." Undoubtedly, children are very precious
beings. They are innocent, transparent, and open to life fully. All the honest
truth-telling are done by children. While we try to educate children all about
life, children teach us what life is all about; how to find the wonders in
everyday life; how to be delighted and content with the simplicity of life
brought about by the towering mountains and deep oceans; how to be thrilled by exciting
stories of the elderly ones; how to experience heart-felt laughter at silly
antics; how to face life’s adversities with optimism and confidence; and how to
be joyful amidst the complexities of life. With all of these, children deserve
nothing but the best in life – a life that is full of facilities and ease… a
life that has less or no struggle... a life that is free from anxiety, pressure,
and hatred… a life where they can explore the world without restrictions and
reservations.
Unfortunately, as underscored by Wong (2010), it is
poignant that many children of today are robbed of their innocence by damaging
influences from the outside world. Some are forced to grow up too soon and face
a perilous future. Some are troubled by the breakdown of family life or peer
pressure. Others are abandoned. Many do
not get an opportunity to step in a school and are left to feed and fend for
themselves on the streets. Several suffer from many forms of violence and are
subjected to cruel and inhumane treatments every second and every minute of
each day. And worst, some children are forced to work. They are made to serve
as a helping hand to the family when children of their age are enjoying and
having so much fun. While children of their age are given money by their
parents for their expenses, they in turn give money to their parents for the
running of their family.
They are diving in the sea and mining the bowels of
the earth. They are exposed to the horrors of the slaughterhouse and the
dangers of explosives. They are abused in bars and massage clinics. They cope
with noxious fumes, machinery that can crush them, unhealthy noise levels, and
the prospect of drowning. Many of them are invincible or hidden behind factory
walls and prostitution dens. They are the unseen workers. They are the child
laborers.
Child labor is no doubt a very serious and alarming
problem in the world, and although it is declining, progress is happening at a
slow and unequal pace. According to the International Labor Organization (ILO),
child labor is defined as work that deprives children of their childhood, their
potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental
development (Diallo, Etienne, & Mehran, 2013, p. 2). Said organization stresses
that child labor specifically refers to work that is mentally, physically,
socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children; and interferes with
their schooling by depriving them of the opportunity to attend school, obliging
them to leave school prematurely, or requiring them to attempt to combine
school attendance with excessively long and heavy work. The United Nations
Children’s Fund (UNICEF) also defines child labor as employing children below
15 years old in factories and industries where they are not directly under the
supervision of their parents. It endangers the children’s right to health,
education, and general well-being.
Philosophers and advocates of policies and programs
protecting children have also given their views on child labor. Amartya Sen
(1999), an economist and philosopher, describes child labor as that barbarity
of children being forced to do things and is made much beastlier still through
its congruence with bondage and effective slavery. Sen also notes that
abolishing such exploitation without corresponding opportunity to enhance the
life situation of these children is equally problematic. On the other hand, Senator
Tom Hawking, an Iowa Democrat who has long favored a stronger role in
protecting children, asserted that kids should be in school, not toiling in the
sex trade, hand-knotting carpets, mining ore, making fireworks, carrying bricks
or operating saws (Kenen, 1999).
Child labor takes many forms which may vary from
country to country, as well as among sectors within countries (United Nations,
2013). The Article 3 of ILO Convention No. 182 states that child labor may be
all forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and
trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom and forced or compulsory
labor, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed
conflict; the use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution, for the
production of pornography or for pornographic performances; the use, procuring
or offering of a child for illicit activities, in particular for the production
and trafficking of drugs as defined in the relevant international treaties; and
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.
Child labor can also be classified according to the
type or branch of economic activity. In the report cited by the ILO Global
estimates 2012 (2013) which involved children aged 5 to 17 years old, three
economic activities were identified namely agriculture, industry, and services.
The agriculture sector comprises activities in agriculture, hunting forestry,
and fishing. The industry sector, on the other hand, includes mining and
quarrying, manufacturing, construction, and public utilities such as
electricity, gas and water. The services sector consists of wholesale and
retail trade; restaurants and hotels; transport, storage, and communications;
finance, insurance, real-estate, and business services; and community as well
as social personal services.
This issue continues to be a great concern in many
parts of the world. As reported by The WorldCounts.com in 2014, more than 200
million children today are child laborers and 73 million of these children are
below 10 years old. Incidentally, 96% of the child workers are in the
developing countries of Africa, Asia and South America. With respect to the
child workers between the ages of 5 and 14, Asia makes up 61% of child workers,
while Africa has 32% and Latin America 7%. Further, while Asia has the highest
number of child workers, Africa has the highest prevalence of child labor
(40%). An estimated 120 million are engaged in hazardous work while 20 million
child workers are employed in factories that make garments, carpets, toys,
matches and hand-rolled cigarettes. On the other hand, 8.4 million children are
trapped in slavery, trafficking, debt bondage, prostitution, pornography and
other illicit activities. Most children work on farms that produce consumer
products such as cocoa, coffee, cotton, rubber and other crops. The number of
children in armed conflicts has risen to 300,000 over the past decade.
Meanwhile, in the Philippine context, “batang tumanda sa paghahanap-buhay” (kids
who grew old making a living) is a common phrase to describe the child laborers
(Doronilla, 1999). Stunted in height, they look much older than their
years. The term child recently acquired a new meaning in the Philippines upon the
enactment of R.A. 7610 in 1992, otherwise known as the Child Protection Law.
The new law, which devotes an entire chapter on working children, expanded the
definition of children to mean "persons below eighteen (18) years of age
or those over but are unable to fully take care of themselves or protect
themselves from abuse, neglect, cruelty, exploitation or discrimination because
of a physical or mental disability or condition."
Child labor, as defined by the State, through the
Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), is the illegal employment of
children below the age of fifteen (15), where they are not directly under the
sole responsibility of their parents or legal guardian, or the latter employs
other workers apart from their children, who are not members of their families,
or their work endangers their life, safety, health and morals or impairs their
normal development including schooling. It also includes the situation of
children below the age of eighteen (18) who are employed in hazardous
occupations.
The aforementioned definition was taken from the
existing child labor statutes of the country and clearly pertains only to the
work situations of children which under Philippine laws are considered illegal.
Accordingly, children above 15 years old but below 18 years of age who are
employed in non-hazardous undertakings, and children below 15 years old who are
employed in exclusive family undertakings where their safety, health, schooling
and normal development are not impaired, are not considered as "child
labor" under the law.
The various faces of child labor in the Philippines have
been vividly depicted in the video-documentary, “Minsan Lang Sila Bata” (They’re a Child but Once), directed by
Ditsi Carolino for the Ateneo Center for Social Policy and Public Affairs and
the Archdiocese of Manila Labor Center. The documentary, in black and white,
tells the stories of elementary school-age children laboring hard in a
slaughterhouse, in a sugarcane plantation and a dockside, transporting bags of
cement. Anyone who had watched that film without getting affected by it is
afflicted with the worst form of apathy.
Indeed, child labor is a situation that exploits the
child’s innocence across the globe. Although it is a pervasive problem in
today's world, it is not a hopeless one. It is obscene. It is urgent. It is
actionable. The evidence is clear that when individuals make a commitment, when
communities mobilize, when societies come together and decide that child labor
is no longer acceptable, great progress can be made toward the goal of ensuring
that children are not denied a childhood and a better future. However, it is
tough going.
Building consensus—and bringing real change—remains
an immense challenge internationally, nationally and in the families and
communities where child labor exists. The common sense objective is to provide
kids the opportunity of a sound education and parents a fair chance at a decent
job. This is an economic issue for countries and families—but it is also an
ethical one. The fight against child labor is ultimately a battle to expand the
frontiers of human dignity and freedom.
labor is moral or
immoral.
The history of Child
Labor
The
history of child labor can be traced back to the Victorian era. During this
period, children were forced to work in mines and factories. Child labor also
played a critical role during the industrial revolution. During that time,
children as young as five years were forced to work in manufacturing industries
under poor working conditions. In the late 1700's and early 1800's,
power-driven machines replaced hand labor for making most manufactured items as
cited by Milton Fried (2014) in the “The New Book of Knowledge”. Factories started
to spring up everywhere, first in England and then in the United States. The
factory owners found a new source of labor to run their machines—children.
Operating the power-driven machines did not require adult strength, and
children could be hired more cheaply than adults. By the mid-1800's, child
labor became a major problem. Forms of extreme child labor existed throughout
American history until the 1930s. In particular, child labor was rife during
the American Industrial Revolution (1820-1870). Industrialization attracted
workers and their families from farms and rural areas into urban areas and
factory work. In factories and mines,
children were often preferred as employees, because owners viewed them as more
manageable, cheaper, and less likely to strike. Historical documents revealed
American children worked in large numbers in mines, glass factories, textiles,
agriculture, canneries, home industries, and as newsboys, messengers,
bootblacks, and peddlers. Children had always worked, especially in farming,
but factory work was hard. A child with a factory job might work 12 to 18 hours
a day, six days a week, to earn a dollar. Many children began working before
the age of 7, tending machines in spinning mills or hauling heavy loads. The
factories were often damp, dark, and dirty. Some children worked underground,
in coal mines. The working children had no time to play or go to school, and
little time to rest. They often became ill.
Fried
(2014) added that by 1810, about 2 million school-age children were working 50-
to 70-hour weeks. Most came from poor families. When parents could not support
their children, they sometimes turned them over to a mill or factory owner. One
glass factory in Massachusetts was fenced with barbed wire "to keep the
young imps inside." These were boys under 12 who carried loads of hot
glass all night for a wage of 40 cents to $1.10 per night.
Meanwhile,
in the Philippines, Aldaba, Lanzona, and Tamangan (2004) reported that child
labor has been a problem since the early twentieth century. In a 2015 report by
the ILO, there are about 875,000 children aged 5-14 and 1,221,000 adolescents
aged 15-17 years involved in child labor in the Philippines. Rates of child
labor are significantly higher amongst boys, with 5.4% of boys aged 5-14
involved in child labor compared to 3% of girls.
In the provinces of Negros Occidental and Negros
Oriental in particular, the Center for Investigative Research and Multimedia
Services (CIRMS) as cited by Latoza (2006) noted an increasing number of child
laborers, particularly in haciendas. Negros Oriental was reported to have nearly
200,000 child workers, while neighboring Negros Occidental has around 140,000.
An average of 8,600 new child laborers join Negros Island’s workforce every
year.
As reported by Laudato (2007), the conditions which
Filipino child laborers are forced to endure vary widely. Some children have
jobs that place them in immediate physical danger. These risks include exposure
to potentially harmful chemicals or sharp tools, and other dangers that may be
less obvious but no less risky. Children are often forced to work long hours
with few breaks, which takes a toll on their physical development. Others are
abused by their employers, both physically and psychologically. Although some
companies make use of both boys and girls in their operations, boys remain at
higher risk of becoming child laborers; almost 67 percent of child workers in
the Philippines are boys. Hazardous work involving children is most prevalent
in the Central Luzon, Bicol, Northern Mindanao and Western Visayan Island
regions. Depending on the type of labor, children are forced to work at a very
young age. Sugarcane plantations, for example, employ children as young as six.
In March 16, 2007, Quezon City operatives rescued 25
minors from a garment factory on Dapitan Street, Barangay Sto. Domingo in
Quezon City. Police arrested the owner of the garment factory who was charged
with violating the country’s Anti-Child Labor. The victims said that they had
been forced to work 10 hours a day, seven days a week, with a monthly salary of
only Php 1000.00. They also added that they were only allowed to go home every
December.
Another example was the raid by the National Bureau
of Investigation, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), and the
Kamalayan Development Foundation on a chlorine bleach factory in Marilao,
Bulacan. The unit freed 11 children who were being illegally detained by their
company inside the factory (Arroyo, 1999).
Amidst the harmful effects that
child labor brings, why does it still exist in the Philippines? What are the
reasons that cause parents, families, and business establishments to allow and
force children to work? As with many
threats to children's development and well-being, poverty is considered to be a
root cause of child labor. Families struggle to make ends meet and face hard
decisions when it comes to sending their children to work. Lawrence Jeff
Johnson, director of ILO's country office for the Philippines, emphasized the
urgent need to get to the root of child labor which is linked with poverty and
lack of decent and productive work. He also added that while the government
strives to keep children in school and away from child labor, it is a must to
ensure decent and productive work for parents and basic social protection for
families (Child Fund, 2013).
Although regional financial struggles are a major
cause of child labor in the Philippines, the global economy is another factor.
According to the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting as reported by Paddock (2014),
the escalating price of gold has driven mining operations in the Philippines to
new levels, and many mining companies make use of children as young as 9 or 10,
in some instances. As many as 18,000 children are involved in regional gold
mining operations across the Philippines, and currently the country ranks 19th
in terms of gold production. In 2014, the gold mining industry in the
Philippines produced about 18 tons of gold, or $700 million. As the demand for
gold increases, along with its price, so too will the number of children forced
to work. Gold production in the Philippines is highly dangerous. Young boys and
teenagers are often forced to descend into watery pits in a process known as
compression mining. With only a tube to allow them to breathe underwater, they
fill bags with ore before returning to the surface. Aside from the obvious
physical dangers of this type of work, children and teenagers face other risks
when working in the mining industry, such as exposure to mercury, which is used
to leech gold from rock.
Philippine ILO (1998) also claimed that children are
also impelled to work from an early age because of the centuries-old tradition
that the child must work through solidarity with the family group, so as to
compensate as much as possible for the economic burden that he/she represents
and to share in the maintenance of his/her family, which is usually a very
large one. In the Philippines, families particularly value helpfulness and
responsibility-sharing. Philippine culture especially in rural areas,
"considers child work as a phase of socialization where future roles are
learned and working to share in the family is seen as training. [T]he
transmission of skills from parents and the evolution of proper attitudes to
work are some of the considered social contributions of child labor."
Another reason why children work is the failures in
the country’s education system. Many parents prefer to send their children out
to work rather than to school, either because there is no school within a
reasonable distance of the family home, or because they cannot do without the
income the working child brings in, or because they cannot meet the costs of sending
the child to school, or again because they cannot see what use schooling would
be to him. Poor schooling has little credibility for many families since it
does not promote economic improvement. For so long as developing countries
cannot successfully maintain their commitment to a decent quality universal
education, increased child participation in the labor market is to be expected
(Philippine ILO, 1998)
The report of Philippine ILO (1998) likewise posited
that another major factor in the increase in the number of working children is
the demand for child workers. Employers know all too well the advantages of
employing children. They represent a docile work force, which could be hired
and replaced at a fraction of adult wages. They do not join labor unions and
very seldom complain. Above all, employers who hire children gain a competitive
advantage in both national and international markets due to the low wages they
pay children.
While significant progress has been
made in reducing the number of child laborers in the Philippines, which
declined 40% for children aged 5 to 14 from 2004 to 2013, there is still a long
road ahead to eliminating child labor as there are still over 2 million
children working.
Eradicating the Problem
Church and
labor groups, teachers, and many other people are greatly enraged by the cruelty
and mercilessness child labor brings. Philippine is not alone in the effort to
eradicate child labor. It is truly an international campaign.
The
elimination of child labor has always been central to the aims of the ILO. In
fact the first international standard to regulate child labor was adopted in
1919. From this time onwards, ten child labor standards have been adopted and a
Minimum Age Convention (No. 138) was drawn up in 1973. In 1999 the ILO adopted
Convention No. 182 on the worst forms of child labor, which is discussed in
more detail throughout this resource. Established in 1992, the International
Program on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) is the ILO’s biggest technical
cooperation program.
IPEC works
towards the elimination of child labor, taking action throughout the world to
improve the situation of child laborers every day. Thanks to IPEC’s efforts,
hundreds of thousands of children have been taken out of work and given better
opportunities or have been prevented from having to work.
On June
1999, over 160 countries approved an ILO agreement known as the ILO Convention
No. 182, or the Worst Forms of Child Labor Convention (Doronilla, 1999), which
came into effect in the year 2000. It covers forced labor, slavery,
trafficking, and debt bondage. It includes prostitution, pornography, and other
types of exploitative and dangerous work. It opposes types of work likely to
harm the health, safety, and morals of a child. Convention 182 calls for
immediate measures to eliminate these practices.
In 2002,
the ILO chose June 12 as the world day against child labor (Flores, 2006). The
event commemorated in the cities of Ormoc, Bacolod, and Davao in 2006.
History
tells us that some countries have already taken their battle against this
perennial dilemma even before the establishment of the ILO. Britain was the
first to pass laws regulating child labor (Fried, 2014). From 1802 to 1878, a
series of laws gradually shortened the working hours, improved the conditions,
and raised the age at which children could work. Other European countries
adopted similar laws.
Meanwhile,
Fried (2014) affirmed that in the United States, it took many years to outlaw
child labor. By 1899, 28 states had passed laws regulating child labor. Many
efforts were made to pass a national child labor law. The U.S. Congress passed
two laws, in 1918 and 1922, but the Supreme Court declared both
unconstitutional. In 1924, Congress proposed a constitutional amendment
prohibiting child labor, but the states did not ratify it. Then, in 1938,
Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act. It fixed minimum ages of 16 for
work during school hours, 14 for certain jobs after school, and 18 for dangerous
work. Today all the states and the U.S. government have laws regulating child
labor. These laws have cured the worst evils of children working in factories.
But some kinds of work are not regulated. Children of migrant workers, for
example, have no legal protection. Farmers may legally employ them outside of
school hours. The children pick crops in the fields and move from place to
place, so they get little schooling.
Philippine
joins this global fight against child labor. In 1946, when the country claimed
its independence from American Rule and became a Republic (The Philippine
Campaign, 2012), the country was allowed to make its own child labor laws. One
significant law was the power of the Secretary of Labor to grant a special work
permit for the employment of a child whose employment is otherwise prohibited
(The Philippine Campaign, 2012). This allowed any child to work. In the years
1953 and 1960, the Philippines ratified three international conventions adopted
by the ILO, relating to child labor (The Philippine Campaign, 2012). These
conventions made laws that prohibits the employment of children in industry
during night time, fixes the minimum age of employment for industry at 15 years
but allowed younger children to be employed in undertakings in which only
members of the employer's family are employed, provided that such work are not
dangerous to the life, health or morals of the children employed, and required
the medical examination of children as a pre-requisite to employment and their
subsequent re-examinations (The Philippine Campaign, 2012).
It was in the
year 1986, right after the people's revolution, when projects for street
children and child scavengers began to emerge in the country. In 1988, the
government, through the auspices of the United Nations Children's Emergency
Fund (UNICEF), launched the "Breaking Ground for Community Action on Child
Labor" project to identify and assist communities in regions with a high
concentration of child labor. Activities under the project focused on provision
of basic health and education services to children, on provision of livelihood
and entrepreneurial skills to children's parents, and on advocacy work to
convince parents and employers to remove children from heavy or dangerous work.
Significantly, in 1989, the government promulgated the Philippine Plan of
Action for children which set specific goals for children in especially
difficult circumstances, among which is the banning of children from hazardous
occupations/situations by 80% by the year 2000.38 The year 1991 saw the
creation of the National Child Labor Program Committee which expanded the
original implementers of the project "Breaking Ground..." to involve
14 governmental and non-governmental agencies. Also, the country’s DOLE set up
the Sagip Bata quick action program in 1994. In the meantime, the DOLE has
incorporated the ILO Convention No. 182 into Department Order No.4 (Doronilla,
1999).
Today, the focus
of actions in the country is on the elimination of risk to children rather than
on ending their participation in all forms of work. Such approach is needed to
accommodate the poverty element in child labor and allow the families flexibility
in maintaining their essential survival mechanisms while protecting the
children involved. Thus, among the emerging strategies now being pursued by the
government is the focusing of rescue efforts on the most exploitative forms of
child labor or the high-risk children such as the very young (below age 12 or
13), those in hazardous working conditions, or those in bonded labor. For the
rest of the working children, however, until alternatives for survival are set
in place, heightened efforts should be exerted to assure that they are in jobs
that are not harmful to their health and physical and mental development, that
they have opportunities for education and recreation, and that they receive the
same conditions of employment and protection as ordinary workers in addition to
their rights as children. The protection of existing labor legislation,
standards, as well as welfare schemes designed to protect workers' well-being,
should be extended to them. At the same time, sufficient and effective programs
of rehabilitation are needed to complement the said strategy.
Eradicating
child labor truly is a moral cause and a societal challenge. If we summon the
will to do it, we can bring hope to children all over the world and affirm the
inalienable right of every child to have a childhood.
Judging its Morality
One of the best ways to determine the morality of an
issue is to understand it using opposing theories. In this paper, two known
theories are used to underscore the ethical concerns of child labor. These are
the Kantian and the Utilitarian Ethics.
The underlying idea behind Kantian ethics is that
each human being has inherent worth.
Simply because you are a human, you have worth in and of yourself (Wood,
2008). Kant’s evidence for this is
simple, without human beings, there would be nothing “valued” — so, since the
value must come from someplace, it must be from human beings. Further, Kant
argues that human reason facilitates human autonomy. So, we can reason to what we want to
accomplish in the world — i.e. we can make decisions about how to act and the
overall course of our lives. Thus, we
can also reason to right behavior.
One of the major variations on the categorical
imperative is the “means or ends” formulation, which makes an important point
about Kant’s view of humanity — namely, that you ought not to treat humans as a
means to an end (Sullivan, 1998). In
other words, you should not use people to get what you want.
Looking through the lenses of Kantian ethics, it is
with no doubt that child labor is immoral since it violates the fundamental
human rights of a child and has been shown to hinder children’s development,
potentially leading to lifelong physical or psychological damage. Children are
not economic objects to be used in order to promote the interests of an
individual or a group.
In Guatamela, for instance, a seven year old child
insert fuses into firecrackers, a dangerous work that can cause explosions and
burns. In India, on the other hand, 50,000 children work in the glass industry,
in front of burning furnaces. In Bangladesh, Egypt, and Pakistan, children work
in tanneries, where they are exposed to corrosive chemicals and bacterial
contamination (Kenen, 1999).
In the Philippines, it has been mentioned earlier
that most of the country's working children are exposed to very poor working
conditions. Children in agriculture are exposed to heavy loads, chemicals used
for fertilizers and pesticides, and to natural elements such as rain, sun and
strong winds. Those in fishing suffer from ruptured eardrums and shark attacks.
On board the fishing vessels, they have to endure congested, unsanitary
conditions and poor food which often lead to illnesses.
Laudato (2007) also noted that of the children in
the informal sector who work on their own account, those involved in street
trades suffer not only from sickness due to exposure to heat, rain, dust and
fumes, but also from the risk of vehicular accidents and from frequent
molestation and harassment by peers, adult syndicates and even law enforcers.
In addition to these, the child scavengers suffer from tetanus infections,
while those engaged in prostitution get constantly exposed to sexually
transmitted diseases and maltreatment from sadistic customers.
Factory child
workers also risk cuts and other injuries from accidents caused by modern
machineries and from the lack of protective mechanisms such as gloves and
masks. Children in garment factories and in wood industries suffer from back
strain, hand cramps, eye strain, headaches and allergies due to dust. Those in
the pyrotechnics manufacturing run the additional risk of injury or death
caused by the accidental explosion of their products.
With all the aforesaid harmful and risky types of
work children engage in, it can be concluded that child labor is unethical
based on the premises of the Kantian ethics since it does not only entail
physical repercussions such as stunted growth and diseases, but it also causes
certain psycho-social, emotional, and intellectual effects. Furthermore, child
labor is unacceptable since it distorts the children’s values, leads to loss of
their dignity and self-confidence, and exposes them to anti-social behavior.
In Kantian ethics, it is likewise emphasized that
one should not act on motives that he or she would not want to be universal
law. If you were to put yourself into the shoes of a child laborer, would you
be willing enough to undergo the unbearable pain that he or she feels? Would
you find it ethical if others let you suffer while they enjoy the fruits of
your labor? If your answers are no, then definitely, child labor is immoral.
On the contrary, Jeremy Bentham and
John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarian ethics believe
that the purpose of morality is to make life better by increasing the amount of
good things such as pleasure and happiness in the world and decreasing the
amount of bad things such as pain and unhappiness. It rejects moral codes or
systems that consist of commands or taboos which are based on customs,
traditions, or orders given by leaders or supernatural beings. Instead, utilitarian
ethics thinks that what makes a morality be true or justifiable is its positive
contribution to human and perhaps non-human beings (Smart, 1973). In
other words, this theory emphasizes that one may use whatever means or act on whatever motives which are
necessary to achieve an end that increases happiness. It doesn’t matter why one
did the action, only that the end result is an increase in happiness.
If we are going to determine the
morality of child labor based on the grounds of Utilitarian ethics, there is
nothing wrong with child labor since this ethics states that, in all
situations, one should act in a way that generates the greatest benefit for the
greatest number of people. Everyone’s interests are considered equal. Thus, if
utterly poor families are only able to survive when the children work, it is
unethical to prevent them from doing so. By permitting child labor, we are
promoting the greatest good for the greatest number of people. The family
remains intact as a result of the income received, while consumers obtain
inexpensive goods from their retailers.
Families and consumers are not the only ones who are
benefited by child labor. Companies are likewise taking advantage of this
practice. Since the economics of the whole world has been in a declining state,
companies have found different ways to cut their costs down. Some of these ways
include outsourcing and using child labor. Even though this may not be legal or
ethical, some companies do capitalize on child labor since these businesses believe
that young souls do not have an essential stake in any economic configuration
of their world.
One of the famous companies exploiting child labor
is Nike. According to Cushman (1998), the supervisors at Nike’s Subakumi Plant in
Indonesia frequently throw shoes of their child laborers, slap them in the
face, kick them, and call them dogs and pigs. Apple, Hershey’s West Africa
supply chain, and Microsoft are also said to be engaged in child labor especially
in underdeveloped countries which lack laws to protect children (Stevens, 2012).
Another known company which concurs with the
foundations of Utilitarian ethics is Gap which was accused of using child labor
in their Indian factories in 2007. For several years following the Cambodia child
labor disaster, Gap built up its reputation as a stakeholder-friendly, socially
responsible business. Sadly, this company was involved in a big issue when
child workers were discovered in horrible factory conditions in India. Despite
the dilemma that beset the company, Gap knew how to prevent the harsh scrutiny it
faced in the past. They immediately cancelled
their order from the said factory and took full responsibility in the press for
the incident. Their new response was to publically accept that child labor was not
just a concern of a single company, rather, it is an issue for all companies
that outsourced and that no one company could change this. Bill Chandler, Gap
Inc.’s Vice President of Corporate Communication, supported this notion when he
pointed out that there is no single company that can change a societal
situation, rather, it is going to be an industry response (Smith et al, 1975).
To start an industry response to the problem, forums
for retailers, non-governmental organizations and the Indian government were
funded by said company to disseminate information about child labor within
India. Because of this move, there was little, to no negative impact to the
public image of Gap. Even though this occurrence was actually worse than the
incident in Cambodia, it had a broader support base and out down the issue
within just a few days.
In examining their history with child labor from an
ethical perspective, it is readily determined that Gap, Inc.’s true intentions
were to be and to act in an ethical manner and not manipulate facts for the
sole purpose of public approval (Siddiqiq and Patrinos, 1998). It seems that from the start, this company
was not overtly focused on strictly public image, but more so the principle of
their actions. Because of this, Gap has proven itself to be quite
utilitarian. The perfect example of
utilitarian action was their reaction to Cambodian child labor. When most
retailers cut and run from working with the country completely, the company
decided to remove itself from that particular factory, but not the country as a
whole. Its reasoning was that historically, when companies all retract from a
specific country with production factories, the children dismissed from those
factories are often left in a worse position (Smith et al, 1972). With the companies pulling out their work,
the underage workers may not be compensated for the efforts of their previously
completed labor and their future employment is placed in jeopardy. Gap was not only thinking of their public
image, but the livelihood of Cambodian citizens. While its image significantly
tarnished with the decision to not immediately and totally withdraw from the
country, few appreciated that Gap had a larger picture in mind. It was after
this incident that the company changed its management style to include not just
monitoring, but a remediation of and response to the situation. Ind, Gap
adheres to the views of utilitarian since this company espouses that the value
of monitoring extends far beyond uncovering problems; it includes all of the
actions the company takes to facilitate remediation in a sustainable way (gapinc.com).
This principle clearly states that Gap focuses on more than just public image,
but rather on the best consequence for the most people. Gap’s goal is to
provide for and assist millions of factory workers, while providing its
customers with quality products and to not be seen as just benefitting its
executives and shareholders.
In general, the utilitarian approach used by Gap to
foreign labor does actually produce the best outcome for the most people. Factory
workers can keep their jobs and are paid relatively fairly in manageable
working conditions while Gap executives are no longer under constant scrutiny
and can take pride in their labor endeavors. In the case of the shareholders
and consumers, they can invest reasonable amounts of money in products and
ownership that is not too expensive and funds socially responsible efforts. It
may not be a perfect system, but the outcome is purely utilitarian by producing
the most beneficial outcome for the highest number of stakeholders.
While these utilitarian views of child
labor make sense on the surface, in analyzing further, it is never comforting
to hear that you purchase products made by children in remote factories with
unimaginable conditions. Even knowing that companies do their best to prevent
such problems, they still place the burden of uncertainty on the consumers. The
benefits many companies and people get by capitalizing on child labor do not
make it morally or ethically right for them to exploit children in all forms.
While it is true that utilitarianism
promotes the common interest of the greatest majority, the common good must be
made apparent in its concrete term, which is not, as defined by Fr. Gorospe
(1974), the sum total of the social, political and economic goods in society
and the dynamic common good of persons, the total human development of each and
every person.
Child labor, being a malignant social cancer, is a
prime example of how we have failed to promote the common good. Children
scavenging for trash are a painful symbol of the reality of inequitable growth
in the country. Child labor may produce a sense of happiness for the family of
the children involved; however, the amount of joy generated from letting the
children work is very small, instead, considerable suffering prevents the children
from obtaining education and from experiencing the simple joys of childhood.
Hoping for its End
Indeed, the fight against child
labor is long and arduous. The wealth of a nation is not solely based on its natural
and economical resources, but it depends more obviously in the kind and quality
of the wealth of its children and youth who are considered the creators,
molders, and shapers of a nation’s tomorrow. Their quality and personality will
determine the kind of destiny that will help the nation realize its goals.
For that reason, it is the prime duty for every
nation and every society to develop and foster a strong, creative, passionate, healthy
and intellectual youth. It is the obligation of the older generations to guide
and direct the youth in the right path. The youth is the heart of every nation
for they possess the zest and the potentials to strengthen and improve its
sectors. The youth is the powerhouse of every country for they demonstrate
limitless energy, willpower, capability, fervor, and interest. Hence, this
infinite storehouse of energy has to be properly molded and needs to be given
appropriate direction as well as sufficient guidance. The youth has to be
trained to use their talents and abilities in constructive ways and help in
nation-building and strengthening of it.
Be kind and compassionate to the young, and they
will flourish and succeed, becoming tomorrow's doctors, scientists, engineers,
poets, artists, musicians, visionaries, and leaders. But treat them badly, and
they will become tomorrow's suicide victims, drug addicts, drunks, thieves,
gangsters, rapists, armed robbers, and murderers.
This applies not just to parents, either, but to
anyone who has contact with children. As a parent, teacher, big brother,
counselor, scoutmaster, doctor, psychiatrist, social worker, neighbor, mentor,
or even just an ordinary citizen, you have an immense responsibility. You have
a great role to portray in teaching these young minds and in touching their
lives. Treat them with compassion and bestow upon them the rights to grow, to
love, to live, to dream, and you will certainly safeguard the future of the
human race. Treat them with hardheartedness and deprive them of their rights,
and you will assure a future which is evil and loathsome. The choice is yours.
Conclusion
Regardless of the benefits that one
can get from engaging in child labor, the writer still believes that child
labor is immoral and it has to stop. The happiness of many people that child
labor brings cannot be used as a justification of its continuity. One cannot
use a child as a means and object for the pleasure of others. What is
considered permanent is the pain that a child has to endure for the sake of
others.
A child should experience having fun with his or her
playmates and not having to deal with the hostile environment and risky
machines. A child should be given the opportunity to be educated but never the
chance to be manipulated.
The journey toward eliminating child labor is
undoubtedly a long way, but with our concerted and sincere efforts, we can
surely say that there will be no more stories about the plight of the unseen
workers.
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