Child Labor, a Normative Perspective - Why Some Things Should Not Be for Sale

Thesis: Child Labor – if unavoidable – needs to be incorporated by a formal institution

Child Labor is one of the most severe issues we have to face worldwide. Even though there was a significant decrease of child laborers in the past years, still over half of them suffer under dangerous and hazardous work (Nowakowski, 2015). We claim to strongly disapprove of and avoid child labor, but in fact, there are many cases in which western consumers greatly tolerated products which contained materials produced by child workers (e.g. Toor, 2016).

In Why Some Things Should Not Be on Sale Debra Satz offers an approach for a normative perspective on child labor. On a humanitarian basis, she emphasizes the inevitable trade-off of values that both parents and the state are facing in regard to child labor. Of course, child labor is a global issue which cannot be tackled within days nor is there a key strategy to forever remove it from the world. Simply banning it under any circumstances will not necessarily lead to total abolition of the issue. Further, ignoring the fact that child labor happens every day or regarding it as a mere symptom of poverty and cultural issues will not help eliminating it as well. My goal here is not to give an instruction on how to permanently banish child labor but to extend the strategy Satz provides by a practical idea which may be able to approach the problem of child labor more effectively.

In countries where child labor is simply inevitable, it has to be made sure that the children’s interests are protected. These interests are namely the interest of welfare and agency (Satz, 2010, p. 160). The children must be given the chance to benefit from the work they have to do - as long as it does no harm to them. Formal institutions should take responsibility to make sure those children have the opportunity to get educated. The Government is greatly incentivized to protect their interests because children are the society of tomorrow. Well educated citizen form a productive and successful society, leading the country out of misery and poverty.

In order to accomplish this goal, child labor has to be institutionally acknowledged rather than ignored. There have to be binding agreements with employers which represent and protect children’s interests. E. g. part of the money the children earn is directly invested in education for them^[1].Welfare is guaranteed by banning hazardous labor and only allowing work which is beneficial for the target. The agency problem is avoided by the government, since it has strong incentives to protect and educate children properly. Therefore, finding appropriate guidelines is beneficial for both government and society, eventually leading to a state where child labor is not needed anymore. Realizing this approach sure is a very difficult task and may be seen as too utopian. It requires both a benevolent government and sufficient scrutiny. One can argue that under a benevolent government, the country would not have to face problems like child labor, but that is simply not true.

It is crucial that child labor is not demonized or institutionally ignored anymore. The issue needs to be combated efficiently and sustainably.