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Western Policies on Child Labor Abroad

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Roland Pierik  and
Mijke Houwerzijl
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Abstract

Child labor evokes deep emotions and is cause for growing international concern. Most recent global estimates show that 186 million children are engaged in full time economic activity. This paper discusses the possibilities and pitfalls of Western policies that seek to curb child labor abroad. Since such policies aim to combat practices in other societies, policy-makers should be aware of the many relevant differences between developing and developed countries. We discuss three issues that are central to this debate: different conceptions of childhood and the dominance of the Western conception in these debates; the distinction between child work and child labor; and socioeconomic causes of child labor. We then evaluate the implications of these investigations for direct and indirect policy options against child labor abroad.

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Articles
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , June 2006 , pp. 193 - 218
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 2006

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References

1 Kaushik Basu and Zafris Tzannatos, “The Global Child Labor Problem: What Do We Know and What Can We Do?” World Bank Economic Review 17, no. 2 (2003), p. 157. These calculations are based on ILO statistics of 2002. It must be noticed that these statistics are not very precise due to the invisibility of child labor. For one thing, the ILO statistics showing more working boys than girls are likely to be inaccurate because girls work more in the invisible domestic sector. Karen Moore, “Supporting Children in Their Working Lives: Obstacles and Opportunities Within the International Policy Environment,” Journal of International Development 12 (2000), p. 534; Gordon Betcherman, Jean Fares, Amy Luinstra, and Robert Prouty, “Child Labor, Education, and Children’s Rights,” in Philip Alston and Mary Robinson, eds., Human Rights and Development: Towards Mutual Reinforcement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); and Jo Boyden, Birgitta Ling, and William Myers, eds., What Works for Working Children (Florence and Stockholm: Rädda Barnen and UNICEF, 1998), p. 24.

2 This mechanism is known as the dynastic poverty trap. Basu and Tzannatos, “The Global Child Labor Problem,” pp. 153–54, 162. Moreover, cultural values strengthen this vicious circle: uneducated parents are less aware of the importance of education than educated parents. Finally, the participation of children in a labor market depresses adult wages, strengthening this vicious circle. Jane Humphries, “Child Labor: Lessons from the Historical Experience of Today’s Industrial Economies,” World Bank Economic Review 17 (2003), p. 183; and Betcherman et al., “Child Labor, Education, and Children’s Rights.”

3 For an analysis of Harkin’s Bill and the motives behind it, see Mohammad Mafizur Rahman, Rasheda Khanam, and Nur Uddin Absar, “Child Labor in Bangladesh: A Critical Appraisal of Harkin’s Bill and the MOU-Type Schooling Program,” Journal of Economic Issues 33, no. 4 (1999), pp. 994–97; Ben White, “Globalization and the Child Labor Problem,” Journal of International Development 8, no. 6 (1996), pp. 833-34; Runa Begum, “Elimination of Child Labour from the Export Garment Industry of Bangladesh: An Experience of Western Intervention” (master’s dissertation, University of Birmingham, 2003), pp. 42–46; and UNICEF, The State of the World’s Children 1997 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 23–24, 60.

4 The original subject matter of the documentary was that this clothing, made in Bangladesh, was labeled as “Made in the USA.” The public outrage it caused, however, was directed at the use of child labor. Begum, “Elimination of Child Labour from the Export Garment Industry of Bangladesh,” p. 43.

5 These figures are contested but are published in official publications of, among others, UNICEF and the U.S. Bureau of International Labor Affairs. UNICEF, The State of the World’s Children 1997, p. 60; Jo Boyden and William Myers, Exploring Alternative Approaches to Combating Child Labour: Case Studies from Developing Countries (Florence: UNICEF, 1995), pp. 29–39; and Bureau of International Labor Affairs, By the Sweat and Toil of Children: The Use of Child Labor in American Imports, Vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Labor, 1994).

6 White, “Globalization and the Child Labor Problem,” pp. 833–34. White’s discussion is based on research done by Boyden and Myers, Exploring Alternative Approaches to Combating Child Labour, pp. 29–39.

7 Some critics pointed out that boycotts that affect only businesses that export goods, which employ only 5 percent of working children, are unlikely to have a significant effect on the overall occurrence of the practice in developing countries. See Bureau of International Labor Affairs, By the Sweat and Toil of Children, p. 2; Ulrike Grote, Arnab Basu, and Diana Weinhold, Child Labor and the International Policy Debate: The Education/Child Labor Trade-Off and the Consequences of Trade Sanctions, ZEF-Discussion Papers on Development Policy no. 1 (Bonn: ZEF Center for Research Development, 1998), p. 11; and UNICEF, The State of the World’s Children 1997.

8 Basu and Tzannatos, “The Global Child Labor Problem,” p. 164.

9 David Held, “Regulating Globalization? The Reinvention of Politics,” International Sociology 15, no. 2 (2000), p. 398; and Malcolm Waters, Globalization (London and New York: Routledge, 1995), p. 3.

10 Joseph Carens, Culture, Citizenship and Community: A Contextual Exploration of Justice as Evenhandedness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 33–34. For reasons of clarity, we have slightly changed the presentation of his model.

11 For a similar claim, see Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Anchor Books, 1999), chs. 6 and 10.

12 Tamar Schapiro, “What Is a Child?” Ethics 109, no. 4 (1999), p. 716.

13 Interestingly, education and liberalism joined each other in the movement of Enlightenment. See the plea for elementary education in John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965), p. 952.

14 William E. Myers, “The Right Rights? Child Labor in a Globalizing World,” Annals 575, no. 1 (2001), p. 40; and Alec Fyfe, Child Labor (Oxford: Polity Press, 1989), pp. 13–14.

15 Philippe Ariès, Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life, trans. Robert Baldick (New York: Knopf, 1962).

16 Ibid.

17 Fyfe, Child Labor, p. 13.

18 Myers, “The Right Rights?” p. 40; and Fyfe, Child Labor, p. 13.

19 See also Jo Boyden, “Childhood and the Policy Makers: A Comparative Perspective on the Globalization of Childhood,” in Allison James and Alan Prout, eds., Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood: Contemporary Issues in the Sociological Study of Childhood (London: Falmer Press, 1997); and Moore, “Supporting Children in Their Working Lives,” p. 536.

20 Boyden, “Childhood and the Policy Makers,” p. 210. See also William E. Myers, “Appreciating Diverse Approaches to Child Labor” (paper presented at the symposium “Child Labor & the Globalizing Economy: Lessons from Asia/Pacific Countries,” Stanford University, California, February 7–9, 2001), p. 4; and Moore, “Supporting Children,” p. 539.

21 Fyfe, Child Labor, p. 4; and Boyden, “Childhood and the Policy Makers,” p. 211.

22 Kaushik Basu, “Child Labor: Cause, Consequence, and Cure, with Remarks on International Labor Standards,” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper no. 2027 (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1998), p. 1089. We do not want to suggest, however, that because children work alongside their parents they are always shielded from abuses comparable to those suffered in factories. Agricultural labor and worse forms of nonindustrial child labor can be hazardous and exploitative as well.

23 Boyden, Ling, and Myers, eds., What Works for Working Children, pp. 9–26.

24 Myers, “The Right Rights?” p. 40; and Fyfe, Child Labor, p. 2.

25 Betcherman et al., “Child Labor, Education, and Children’s Rights.”

26 Myers, “Appreciating Diverse Approaches to Child Labor.” On the distinction between child work and child labor, see also Fyfe, Child Labor, p. 4; Jack Otis, Eileen Mayers Pasztor, and Emily Jean McFadden, “Child Labor: A Forgotten Focus for Child Welfare,” Child Welfare 80, no. 5 (2001); and Moore, “Supporting Children,” p. 533.

27 Betcherman et al., “Child Labor, Education, and Children’s Rights”; Moore, “Supporting Children,” p. 540; and Sarah L. Bachman, “A New Economics of Child Labor: Searching for Answers Behind the Headlines,” Journal of International Affairs 53, no. 2 (2000), pp. 553–54.

28 Assefa Bequele and William E. Myers, First Things First in Child Labour: Eliminating Work Detrimental to Children (Geneva: ILO, 1995), pp. 26–27.

29 Emphasis added.

30 From 1919 to 1932, the ILO had created special Minimum Age Conventions for the various branches of industry. The first one, No. 5, in particular received the large number of 72 ratifications. It is the only Convention on child labor ratified by India (in 1955), maybe because the minimum age was set at 12 years for this country. The general minimum age was at first 14 years, later raised to 15, and 16 for specific dangerous environments and night work. The Agriculture Convention established a minimum age of 14 years, save outside the hours fixed for school attendance (art. 1). Here, the intention was only to prohibit employment of children during compulsory school hours. Other conventions were added in 1946: No. 77 and 78 prescribed medical examination for persons under 18 years in industry and nonindustrial occupations. No. 79 prohibited night work in nonindustry under the age of 14. Two Minimum Age Conventions were adopted later on: for Fishermen (1959) and for Underground Work (1965). Smolin presumes that these were meant to raise minimum ages for particularly hazardous forms of employment. David M. Smolin, “Strategic Choices in the International Campaign against Child Labor,” Human Rights Quarterly 22 (2000), p. 944.

31 Although Convention 138 speaks of a gradual replacement of the old conventions, and the old conventions are not closed for ratification.

32 It was especially disappointing that Convention 138 was mainly ratified by Western and Latin American countries, because they comprise a relatively small percentage of the total number of working children in the world. Smolin, “Strategic Choices in the International Campaign against Child Labor,” p. 945.

33 Myers, “The Right Rights?” p. 43.

34 In the slipstream of ratifying Convention 182, these two countries and a lot of other member states also ratified Convention 138. Today, Convention 138 has been ratified by 117 countries. For an analysis of the political agenda, motives, and compromises behind the ILO policy to link the ratification of Convention 182 and Convention 138, see Smolin, “Strategic Choices in the International Campaign against Child Labor,” pp. 946–50; and Madiha Murshed, “Unraveling Child Labor and Labor Legislation,” Journal of International Affairs 55, no. 1 (2001), pp. 181, 187–88.

35 Humphries, “Child Labor,” p. 175.

36 See Thilo Ramm, “Laissez-faire and State Protection of Workers,” in Bob Hepple, ed., The Making of Labour Law in Europe: A Comparative Study of Nine Countries up to 1945 (New York: Mansell, 1986), p. 76.

37 Humphries, “Child Labor,” p. 177.

38 Ramm, “Laissez-faire and State Protection of Workers,” pp. 77–79; and Humphries, “Child Labor,” pp. 188–89. Moehling shows that there is little evidence that child labor laws contributed to the dramatic decline in child labor in nineteenth-century America. Carolyn Moehling, “State Child Labor Laws and the Decline of Child Labor,” Explorations in Economic History 36 (1999).

39 Humphries, “Child Labor,” pp. 175–76, 180; and Christiaan Grootaert and Ravi Kanbur, “Child Labor: An Economic Perspective,” International Labour Review 134, no. 2 (1995).

40 Humphries, “Child Labor,” p. 185.

41 Term borrowed from Walt W. Rostow, The Process of Economic Growth (Oxford: Clarendon, 1953), p. 17. Jane Humphries discusses Ha-Joon Chang’s claim that current child labor standards demand its swifter eradication in developing countries than was achieved in today’s developed nations. Chang suggests that today’s wealthy countries industrialized and became rich through using policies and institutions that were often the opposite of those now thrust on developing countries. They attempt to kick away the ladder by which they rose to prosperity, denying developing countries the same route to the top. Humphries, “Child Labor,” p. 191.

42 Basu and Tzannatos, “The Global Child Labor Problem,” pp. 157–60; and Grote, Basu, and Weinhold, Child Labor and the International Policy Debate, p. 10.

43 Peter Fallon and Zafiris Tzannatos, Child Labor: Issues and Directions for the World Bank (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1998), p. 3.

44 Madiha Murshed, “Unraveling Child Labor and Labor Legislation,” Journal of International Affairs 55, no. 1 (2001), p. 170.

45 Basu, “Child Labor: Cause, Consequence, and Cure,” p. 1015.

46 Grote, Basu, and Weinhold, Child Labor and the International Policy Debate, p. 10.

47 Murshed, “Unraveling Child Labor and Labor Legislation,” p. 182.

48 Myers, “The Right Rights?” p. 46. Similar conclusions are drawn in Sonia Bhalotra and Zafiris Tzannatos, Child Labor: What Have We Learnt? (Washington, D.C.: Social Protection Unit, Human Development Network, 2003), p. 54; Grootaert and Kanbur, “Child Labor: An Economic Perspective”; Fyfe, Child Labor, p. 158; Murshed, “Unraveling Child Labor and Labor Legislation,” p. 182; Betcherman et al., “Child Labor, Education, and Children’s Rights,” p. 27; and Bachman, “A New Economics of Child Labor,” p. 546.

49 Boyden, “Childhood and the Policy Makers,” p. 212. Sudhanshu Handa argues that school enrollment in Mozambique is affected by the number of trained teachers. Sudhanshu Handa, “Raising Primary School Enrollment in Developing Countries: The Relative Importance of Supply and Demand,” Journal of Development Economics 69, no. 1 (2002), pp. 103–28.

50 Moore, “Supporting Children,” p. 540; and Bachman, “A New Economics of Child Labor,” p. 558. Below we discuss a policy that can target such gender-specific causes of child labor.

51 On Ivory Coast, see Grootaert and Kanbur, “Child Labor: An Economic Perspective.” For Cameroon, see Aloysius Ajab Amin, “The Socio-Economic Impact of Child Labour in Cameroon,” Labour, Capital and Society 27, no. 2 (1994), pp. 234–48.

52 Moore, “Supporting Children,” p. 542.

53 Per Miljeteig, “Creating Partnerships with Working Children and Youth,” Social Protection Discussion Paper No. 0021 (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2000); and Manfred Liebel, A Will of Their Own: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Working Children (London: Zed Books, 2004), ch. 1. Miljeteig describes the development and function of several working children’s organizations.

54 Cf. ILO Convention 182 (3) and accompanying recommendation R190.

55 Debra Satz, “Child Labor: A Normative Perspective,” World Bank Economic Review 17 (2003), p. 298; and Murshed, “Unraveling Child Labor and Labor Legislation,” p. 188.

56 UNICEF, The State of the World’s Children 1997, p. 24.

57 See Basu and Tzannatos, “The Global Child Labor Problem,” pp. 166–67.

58 Ibid., p. 164.

59 For surveys of empirical research on collaborative measures, see Grootaert and Kanbur, “Child Labor: An Economic Perspective”; Basu and Tzannatos, “The Global Child Labor Problem,” pp. 166–67; and Basu, “Child Labor: Cause, Consequence, and Cure,” pp. 1093, 1114–16.

60 Basu, “Child Labor: Cause, Consequence, and Cure,” p. 1089; Basu and Tzannatos, “The Global Child Labor Problem,” p. 148.

61 See, for example, Thomas Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights (Oxford: Polity Press, 2002); Allen Buchanan, Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-Determination: Moral Foundations for International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); and Charles Beitz, Political Theory and International Relations, rev. ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, [1979] 1999).

62 Thomas Pogge, “Symposium on World Poverty and Human Rights” and “Severe Poverty as a Violation of Negative Duties,” Ethics & International Affairs 19, no.1 (2005), pp. 1–7, 55–83. These two papers are part of a symposium on Pogge’s work, which also includes five critiques.

63 For a similar conclusion, see Ha-Joon Chang, Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective (London: Anthem Press, 2002), p. 141.

64 Western governments could offer increased market access to those countries that show improvements in the reduction of child labor and the availability of education. But it goes beyond the scope of this paper to discuss the ins and outs of such proposals.

65 Myron Weiner argues that the introduction of compulsory education is a more effective legal approach than a ban on child labor. After all, a child’s presence in school is easier to monitor than a child’s absence from work. Myron Weiner, The Child and the State in India: Child Labor and Education Policy in Comparative Perspective (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991).

66 Moore, “Supporting Children,” p. 540; and Betcherman et al., “Child Labor, Education, and Children’s Rights,” p. 17.

67 Satz, “Child Labor: A Normative Perspective,” p. 304.

68 Cf. David M. Smolin, “Strategic Choices in the International Campaign against Child Labor,” Human Rights Quarterly 22 (2000), p. 979. As a referee for this journal rightfully emphasized, what is needed to function in a society is not a static but a dynamic requirement. If a country develops out of poverty toward a more technologically advanced industry, the education that children need might be more than what they need to function in their current society. So basic education is indeed only a minimum requirement.

69 The original name (until March 2002) was Progresa, an acronym for Programa Nacional de Educación, Salud y Alimentacion—the Education, Health, and Nutrition Program. Although it was not the first of such programs, it is the best known. For a description of the program, see Alan B. Krueger, “Putting Development Dollars to Use, South of the Border,” New York Times, May 2, 2002, p. C2; Emmanuel Skoufias and Susan W. Parker, “Conditional Cash Transfers and Their Impact on Child Work and Schooling,” Economia 2, no. 1 (2001), pp. 45–96; and Benjamin Davis, “Innovative Policy Instruments and Evaluation in Rural and Agricultural Development in Latin America and the Caribbean,” in Benjamin Davis, ed., Food, Agriculture and Rural Development: Current and Emerging Issues for Economic Analysis and Policy Research (Rome: UN Food and Agriculture Organization, 2003).

70 Such programs should be embedded in a country’s overall development agenda, including the provision of good-quality schools. After all, it seems to be inefficient to pay children to attend low-quality schools.

71 Skoufias and Parker, “Conditional Cash Transfers,” p. 48.

72 Evaluations are carried out by the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, D.C., and are available at http:\\www.ifpri.org/themes/progresa.htm.

73 Skoufias and Parker, “Conditional Cash Transfers,” pp. 83–86; and Emmanuel Skoufias, PROGRESA and Its Impacts on the Welfare of Rural Households in Mexico (Washington, D.C.: International Food Policy Research Institute, 2005), p. 59.

74 Skoufias and Parker, “Conditional Cash Transfers,” p. 48; and Luis F. López-Calva, “Child Labor: Myths, Theories and Facts,” Journal of International Affairs 55, no. 1 (2001), p. 67.

75 Davis, “Innovative Policy Instruments and Evaluation in Rural and Agricultural Development in Latin America and the Caribbean.”

76 Although it seems to be less successful than the Oportunidades program. It is less transparent, and it has been very difficult to trace the children that were dismissed earlier. Begum, “Elimination of Child Labour from the Export Garment Industry of Bangladesh,” pp. 46–54; and Rahman, Khanam, and Absar, “Child Labor in Bangladesh,” pp. 997–98.

77 Geir Myrstad, “From Exploitation to Education: Action against the Worst Forms of Child Labor through Education and Training” (paper presented at the World Education Forum, Dakar, April 26–28, 2000). It remains an open question whether this program would have started without the threat of sanctions suggested by Harkin’s Bill. The only thing we can say is that other programs, including Oportunidades, did start without them, implying that such threats are not a necessity.