CHILD LABOR AND ETHICS

What is Child Labor?

Today, throughout the world, around 215 million 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 or care. They are denied the chance to be children. More than half of them are exposed to the worst forms of child labor such as work in hazardous environments, slavery, or other forms of forced labor, illicit activities including drug trafficking

prostitution, as well as involvement in armed 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's International Programme on Child Labor (IPEC) works to achieve the effective abolition of child labor.

Studying Child Labor through various theories of Ethics

Utilitarianism
By introducing Child Labor, Companies save 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 and shareholders make greater profits on their investments.

But what about the children that are working?

Now even the children could be happy if, "the children work under their own free will and the company only gives them an opportunity to earn extra money if they feel like. So, the situation as per Utilitarianism, looks ethical only if children are not abused physically or verbally, are given a nominal wage and work in a safe environment.

Deontology
Different countries have different ideas 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.

This has been the case with China, where Nike a well-established sports merchandise manufacturing company hires children for their choirs. Meanwhile in the Arab Emirates, the women are forbidden to work, so should 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.

Virtue Ethics
The companies consider that they actually do good to the society, if they allow children to work for them but with a nominal payment, without any kind of abuse and in a healthy environment. In the countries where the Government is not functioning properly in providing the orphans with certain facilities, then these companies make the children work for them and earn a livelihood otherwise, they would die or end up in prison following the life of crime.

And if a single parent is working, then if the child helps him/her working to put food on the table then the child understands 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.

Child Labor Codes

To examine multinationals approach to child labor, codes of ethics (frequently also designated as codes of conduct to distinguish such external, societal, usually international documents from the more internallyoriented ethical ones) were collected. From a set of approximately one hundred codes of the largest multinationals and companies that have been pioneers in the field of

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 of codes .These appeared to have a substantially higher share of child labor provisions. The sectors in which these leading companies operate are the ones with the highest likelihood of child labor.

The selection procedure resulted in a total set of fifty so-called child labor codes. It lists the 50 companies, of which more than 60% originates from the US, and 35% from Europe; no Japanese companies could be included in the sample. Almost 75% is active in the apparel industry, with the remainder spread over a variety of sectors.

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 can also refer to host-country or homecountry laws, or to none of them. Industry standards, such as those that have emerged recently in for example apparel, are not included in this category

In addition to these legal norms, focus was on the company-internal HRM issue of the minimum age for its employees. Earlier research has shown that codes drawn up by industry associations are least specific and have the lowest compliance likelihood compared to codes developed by three other types of actors (companies, international organizations and non-governmental organizations).

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 are not mentioned in codes of conduct, multinationals do refer to host-country laws and/or to international standards.

One of the main issues concerning child labor is the minimum-age requirement, in other words, at what age do companies regard children as old enough to become their employees.

Conclusion

So, at the end it is clear that even though 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.