The hullabaloo over the child labor-produced Kathy Lee Gifford clothing line in 1996 left her embarrassed, and it unmasked standard labor practices in many parts of the world. The scandal showed the extent that children are used as assembly line workers in garment factories. Six and seven-year-olds were discovered to be working routine factory hours, routine for them, that is. Twelve to fourteen-hour days were the rule without overtime pay or a two-week vacation to spend at the seashore with the family.
When child labor came out of the closet, what we had always been content to relegate to those far off places in the underdeveloped world without the schools, nurseries and day care centers associated with industrialized countries were suddenly not so confined. UNICEF, the UN children’s fund, started to take a long look at child labor in the world in general. Its report was alarming, although it seemed to make some excuses where more harsh critiques were called for. Governments and their public relations agencies scrambled to dispel the focus on their child labor practices. Anecdotes, reports and photos sparked the anger of the viewing public.

No one knows for sure how widespread the problem is. The International Labor Organization (ILO) did a recent limited survey that came up with some sensible numbers. Some countries were not that cooperative. Indonesia, Ghana, India and Senegal are among the few that have agencies keeping local records of their workforces. How old a child is by definition poses another statistical problem. The legal age for employment, for example, in Egypt is 12; in the Philippines, 14; Hong Kong, 15; the USA, 16. Countries with no statistics or legal limitations may have the worst abuses and are where the untold many are as young as seven and eight, working in the fields, streets and factories. Despite these statistical difficulties, the ILO’s estimate, published in its report, 'The Invisible Children,' of at least 246 million working children is not overstating the problem.

Child labor is not totally confined to the underdeveloped world. Its quality and scope differ markedly from place to place. In industrialized countries, there are families with under-sixteen year-olds who work at casual jobs like newspaper delivery, lawn cutting and baby-sitting, but only as adjuncts to their parental allowances and always around their school needs, family hobbies and activities. But then there are also those distinct pockets of ghettos and underserved communities where child labor is vital for family maintenance. Very often, UNICEF reported, the family, in dire need of a double income, cannot find employment for another adult family member or for someone whose family duties demand they care for babies and pre-school aged children. A UNICEF United Kingdom study showed that between 15 and 26 percent of 11-year olds and between 26 and 36 percent of 15-year-olds are working for needed support of their families.

Industrialized countries often underreport their child labor statistics because they are unwilling to admit that many children are forced to work at the expense of their education and for the family budget. They brag that such employment is for 'pocket money,' when in fact it is for serious need. In the US, for example, there are severely denied sections of the population that have all the earmarks of third-world nations. Appalachia, East St. Louis and the many other inner city Black and Latino communities are overwhelmed with a need for their children to abandon their schooling for jobs. High school drop out rates, delinquency and semi-permanent absenteeism are commonplace. A study by the US General Accounting Office showed a 250 percent increase in child labor between 1983 and 1990. As the 20th century came to a close, the US Department of Labor identified tens of thousands of children working illegally. That survey also revealed mass numbers of Mexican American and other Latino children working 'off the books' on farms and in other rural areas. The report also dispelled the myth that although Black and Latino child labor rates were overrepresented by numbers, many child workers came from two-parent white families, at least one employed, with no more than two children making up the family unit, outside the inner city neighborhoods and living in households free of drug abuse.

But these conditions don’t come even close to the tragedies that await so many children born into third-world families. Even the mainstream press has shown the eight and nine-year olds working the coffee plantations in Brazil, the sugar bogs in Central America, the rice fields in East Asian countries, the mills in Mexico, the shops in Haiti, in the chocolate industry in Cote d’Ivoire, plying the rug looms in India and Pakistan or reaping the pastures of poppies in Afghanistan. Sports equipment made by the children of Pakistan and Central America and designer clothing in South America are among the inventory for export. These products find their ways to the shelves of the developed world’s malls, supermarkets and boutiques or will eventually become its recreational drugs. Indeed, it is not unusual for the child workers themselves to be drug addicted as a way to lessen the pain of their existences. Exploitation of children is not only in export industries. There are millions in Africa working at brick making, stonecutting, rag picking and as maintenance workers, all for wages, of course, that are below the poverty standards even for those areas. Such jobs maintain the local economy, although the more valued child laborers are those that can work in the commercial facilities, in the fields or factories that make products for export and can bring in the profits required for increasing foreign investment.

Why exploit children when adults are available? Most children who work do not have a choice; they have no career options. They cannot choose between a pursuit in the arts, science or commerce. The stark and ugly reality is that they either work the land and the shops or go hungry.

The most powerful force driving children into the workforce and debilitating labor is rather obvious, despite the many denials, including the UNICEF report, by those who profit from such exploitation – what we can call the world’s most devastating weapon of mass destruction – poverty. Where we see poverty and gross inequality of the social order (read: class division), the incidence of child labor increases as well as the level of exploitation. They are directly proportional. To those families of the third world, the pittance that is added to the family income by the child’s wages can make the difference between stark hunger and bare existence. No more UN or ILO surveys are needed to confirm this impression.

Another cause for increased exploitation of children is the imposition of neo-liberal policies on underdeveloped countries. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB), two financial institutions dominated by industrialized countries, demand that local authorities have their working people toe the line or lose crucial credit lines. Thus, longer working hours, wage reductions, harsh working conditions and all that goes with them become the weapons of the IMF and WB loan sharks. Attempts at unionization are violently dealt with. Local bosses become a part of the problem. Their defense is that unless they comply with neo-liberal policies, the factories will close and the farms abandoned. There will be no work for anyone and hunger will increase beyond the pale. They spread the fear that the conglomerates will find replacement services and personnel.

Until the WMD that is poverty is eliminated and no longer defines these economies, child labor as a part of the exploited labor force will flourish. UNICEF and the ILO, social do-gooders and other seemingly well meaning private groups are always suggesting such paths as local Head Starts, the Peace Corps, the Red Cross and a myriad of other well-intentioned programs. But remember the adage about the paving of the road to hell. Time has shown that with these attempts so bogged down by grossly inadequate financing, the cloud of unrest and civil wars, those truly in charge play a blame-the-other-guy game. And there is always that relentless demand for more and more profits while the power structure strives to satiate the markets of the developed world. Cruelly, the US, with free trade treaties as NAFTA, FTAA, CAFTA and others is merely compounding the problem, forcing more and more children and their parents into a labor pool already mired with meager sustenance.

Socialism provides a more permanent answer. In capitalist economies, the unending demand for profits requires an underclass labor force. Racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism and nativism are driving forces behind the promotion of social divisions that foster an underclass and force many to settle for lesser rewards for their labor. Capitalists profit in the hundreds of billions of dollars from these divisions. Child labor, arguably the most heinous of them all, if only because the victims have little or no opportunity to resist and no clout to change their condition by themselves, is an integral part of that equation.

In the world today, there is one nation that is as close as possible to a social ist type economy, with socialism as its goal – Cuba. There, child labor as a social institution does not exist. Cuba has shown that child labor cannot be eliminated unless the rest of the society condemns it as evil. Universal education and health care are musts if child labor is to be erased. In Havana there is a billboard that shouts that 200 milliones de niños en el mundo duermen en las calles – ninquno ellos cubano; 200 million children in the world sleep in the streets – none of them is Cuban. It starts with making our children a priority and doing what it takes to make it right.



--Don Sloan is a contributing editor of Political Affairs.