child labor and ethics

7/28/2019 Child Labor and Ethics

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CHILD LABOR AND ETHICS


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What is Child Labor?

Today, throughout the world, around 215million children work, many full-time.

They do not go to school and have little

or no time to play.

Many do not receive proper nutrition orcare. They are denied the chance to be

children.

More than half of them are exposed tothe worst forms of child labor such as

work in hazardous environments,

slavery, or other forms of forced labor,

illicit activities including drug trafficking


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prostitution, as well as involvement inarmed conflict.

Guided by the principles enshrined in the

ILO's Minimum Age Convention No. 138

and the Worst Forms of Child Labor

Convention No. 182, the ILO'sInternational Programme on Child Labor

(IPEC) works to achieve the effective

abolition of child labor.


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Studying Child Labor through

various theories of Ethics


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Utilitarianism

By introducing Child Labor, Companiessave millions of dollars which is passed

on to the consumers as cheap products

they buy from the firm. Improved profit margins enable greater

dividend paybacks to the shareholders.

Thus, all in all, the company andshareholders make greater profits on

their

investments.


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But what about the children that

are working? Now even the children could be happy

if, "the children work under their ownfree will and the company only gives

them an opportunity to earn extramoney if they feel like.

So, the situation as per Utilitarianism,looks ethical only if children are not

abused physically or verbally, aregiven a nominal wage and work in asafe environment.


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Deontology

Different countries have differentideas of justice, fairness, rules and

regulations and the definition of what

is right and what is wrong.

So, whatever one society may

consider it to be right, the other

society may consider that to be

wrong.

Henceforth, one society may not

impose its point of views on the other

society.


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This has been the case with China,

where Nike a well-established sports

merchandise manufacturing companyhires children for their choirs.

Meanwhile in the Arab Emirates, the

women are forbidden to work, soshould Arab companies be forbidden to

employ women if they make their

foreign operations.

This ultimately leads to the limiting of

peoples choices and opportunities.

Similar is the case with children.


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Virtue Ethics

The companies consider that theyactually do good to the society, if theyallow children to work for them but with anominal payment, without any kind of

abuse and in a healthy environment. In the countries where the Government is

not functioning properly in providing theorphans with certain facilities, then these

companies make the children work forthem and earn a livelihood otherwise,they would die or end up in prisonfollowing the life of crime.


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And if a single parent is working, then if

the child helps him/her working to put

food on the table then the childunderstands the value of food and that

nothing is free.

This may help the child become a better,more hard working and appreciative

individual in the future.

So, the companies are doing good for

the society when they actually need it.


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Child Labor Codes

To examine multinationals approachto child labor, codes of ethics

(frequently also designated as codes

of conduct to distinguish such

external, societal, usually international

documents from the more internally-

oriented ethical ones) were collected.

From a set of approximately onehundred codes of the largest

multinationals and companies that

have been pioneers in the field of


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those codes were selected that

explicitly addressed the issue of child.

Only 13 large companies turned out to

have a code with such provisions.

A set of slightly smaller firms that are

known as pioneers in the adoption ofcodes .These appeared to have a

substantially higher share of child

labor provisions. The sectors in whichthese leading companies operate are

the ones with the highest likelihood of

child labor.


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The selection procedure resulted in a

total set of fifty so-called child labor

codes. It lists the 50 companies, ofwhich more than 60% originates from

the US, and 35% from Europe; no

Japanese companies could beincluded in the sample. Almost 75% is

active in the apparel industry, with the

remainder spread over a variety of

sectors.


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Standards refer to the extent to which

corporate codes mention international

ILO (International Labor Organization)and UN (United Nations) conventions

on child labor.

Alternatively, child labor codes canalso refer to host-country or home-

country laws, or to none of them.

Industry standards, such as those thathave emerged recently in for example

apparel, are not included in this

category


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In addition to these legal norms, focus

was on the company-internal HRM

issue of the minimum age for itsemployees.

Earlier research has shown that codes

drawn up by industry associations areleast specific and have the lowest

compliance likelihood compared to

codes developed by three other typesof actors (companies, international

organizations and non-governmental

organizations).


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Global or multidomestic

approaches to child labor?

Of the fifty multinationals with child labor

codes, none mentions home-country

laws.

Home-country laws, which are usually

stricter, therefore apparently fall beyond

the scope of corporate codes.

Whereas home-country standards arenot mentioned in codes of conduct,

multinationals do refer to host-country

laws and/or to international standards.


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One of the main issues concerning

child labor is the minimum-age

requirement, in other words, at whatage do companies regard children as

old enough to become their

employees.


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Conclusion

So, at the end it is clear that eventhough steps are being taken for the

improvement for the ethical treatment

of the children and abolish child labor,still there is a long way to go.


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