“Child labor” evokes images of 8-year-olds kidnapped by sweatshop overlords or sold by their parents and forced to work in coal mines for bread rations. And in truth, that describes many instances of child labor. So if no one else has done so, let me be the first to propose execution for people who subject children to such treatment.
But is it permissible to point out that those grim cases paint an incomplete picture?
Suppose that in some “developing nations” – a euphemism whose level of phoniness amounts to mockery – families are so poor that despite their best efforts they can’t feed their offspring. Charity and foreign aid help many such children but cannot reach them all. So the youths have the options of theft or begging – or of a slow death from AIDS when they succumb to prostitution to support themselves. Then again, they may just starve.
I wonder whether they would condemn a foreign corporation that hired them to make, say, scarves or skateboards, and paid them enough to buy food and shelter. (Wages from such companies are generally far higher than local pay scales in the Third World, according to The Economist magazine.)
Might the children not, rather, condemn do-gooders from wealthy nations who make it their goal to halt underage labor in poor countries?