The Pros And Cons Of Child Labor

In the United States, a typical day for the average worker is customary. Their weekdays would consist of getting up in the morning, working from nine to five, and enjoying their leisure time at home or at another establishment. For the most part, their jobs would provide them sufficient income and create safe working conditions. However, in developing countries, the working conditions are almost the opposite, especially in garment factories. The Asian Development Bank (ADB), dedicated to reducing poverty in Asia and the Pacific, reflects that some of the things that delineate the working conditions employees face unethical are problems such as “wages below living wages, excessive hours and days worked per week, discrimination...” (Robertson…show more content…
Lawyer Denay Brown, a magna cum laude graduate from Florida State University College of Law, defines child labor as “work done by children that is harmful to them because it is abusive, exploitive, hazardous, or otherwise contrary to their best interests” (Denay, 2010). Children face the same hazards adult workers do while working in sweatshops. However, because of their weaker immune systems and more fragile bodies, they are more likely to be hurt than an adult worker. The International Labour Office (ILO) reports that in 2012, 77,723 kids, ages 5-12, participated in child labor just in Asia and the Pacific (ILO, 2016). Furthermore, “33,860” of these kids were exposed to hazardous jobs. One of the main reasons for the employment of children is the demand for fast and cheap production. Nicola Phillips, who works in the Department of Politics at The University of Sheffield, argues that abuse of child labor in private sectors happen because the manufacturing can be done by unskilled workers, meaning that by hiring children, they can spend less on labor cost since all they do is futile work (Phillips et al., 2014). Moreover, Phillips argues that another benefit offered by child labor is the improbability of them creating trade unions to demand higher salaries and better conditions. In other words, a benefit some employers see on child labor is that they…show more content…
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