Talk:Child labor

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 This article is part of WikiProject Organized Labour, an attempt to better organize information in articles related to Organized Labour. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
Organized Labour Portal
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale.
Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the importance scale.
This article has been selected for the Organized Labour Portal Article Of The Day for 20th of odd months (Jan, Mar, etc.).
If you have rated this article please consider adding assessment comments.
Socrates
Philosophy Portal
This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Philosophy, which collaborates on articles related to philosophy. To participate, you can edit this article or visit the project page for more details.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale.
??? This article has not yet received an importance rating on the importance scale.
48px} This article is part of WikiProject Human rights, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to Human rights on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the Project page, where you can join the Project and contribute to the discussion.
Start This article has been rated as start-Class on the assessment scale.
High This article has been rated as high-importance on the assessment scale.


Contents

[edit] Older comments

The issue of child labor deserves further elaboration relating to strategies tackling it and to initiatives by international organizations, government, private sector and NGOs. Child labor is today tackled by international organizations, mainly the International Labor Organization (ILO), government, private sector and civil society initiatives. The ILO has drafted convention against the use of child labor (to be mentioned with links) which have been signed and ratified by a growing number of countries. It has also agreed on Memorandum of Understanding with Employers Association in a number of countries (I can provide info on Bangladesh). Governments have enacted new legislation, directly (prohibiting child labor under a certain age (mostly 15), and restricting the use of child labor in certain hazardous industries (e.g. Government of India), and indirectly (compulsory education) targeting child labor. Private Sector has agreed on Code of Conducts and monitoring agreements to reduce or prohibit the use of child labor (e.g. H&M in garment industry). Civil society initiatives have launched many shaming campaigns on the issue of child labor (e.g. Clean Clothes Campaign, South Asian Coalition Against Child Servitude), mainly targeting multinational companies (Nike, Adidas) which operate and produce in in developing countries. Subsequently some of these companies have addressed the issue by agreeing on Code of Conducts and doing social auditing (e.g. SA 8000). Many NGOs are active in prevention of child labor through campaigns, relief to (freed) child laborers and rehabilitation of child laborers. The Global March Against Child Labor has been one of the major initiatives to make the issue more public other initiative include Rugmark (carpet industry, several countries) and Care Fair (carpet industry, South Asia, several countries).

[edit] Amoral view

Amoral really doesn't mean what KDRGibby keeps insisting that it does. According to my dictionary it means 1. "not admitting of moral distinctions or judgments; outside the sphere of morality; non-moral. 2. Lacking moral judgment or sensibility; unable to distinguish between right or wrong". It would be possible to have an amoral view of the issue, I suppose, but it would be something along the lines of "so what?" Friedman, the main authority cited, admits of moral distinctions and judgments as much as any other social commentator - why else bang on about "freedom", after all? What I think you are aiming at is something more like "morally-neutral" or "detached". However, if we admit that there is a view of this issue that is not bound up with moral judgements, we assert that that view is rational, objective and scientific, in contrast to the purely emotional (and therefore irrational and wrong) view of others. For those reasons, I think that whichever way it is phrased any attempt to divide arguments into moral and not moral is going to fall foul of POV. Mattley (Chattley) 19:12, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree. It's too weird for the title of a section. RJII 19:18, 9 February 2006 (UTC)


Amoral does not mean NOT moral Mattley. For example, economics is an amoral field of studies. It does not sit and posture human morality to determine policies. Amoral is the best word, both of you seem to be conflating Amoral with immoral but when you say that here is why child labor occurs, here is when it does not occur you are not making a moral judgment on whether it was good or bad. Stating that child labor is a necessary step in wealth building is not giving it moral support one way or the other. (Gibby 19:38, 9 February 2006 (UTC))

Sure, economics itself is "amoral." But, you don't label every economics section in various articles as the "amoral" section. Call it "economic analysis" or something. We already know that science is "amoral." Also, if you think economists are not guided by pushing a ethical POV, I think you're mistaken. RJII 19:51, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, they're called macro economists. (Gibby 20:09, 9 February 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Economists like Milton Friedman

This is sloppy wording. Is this a claim that Friedman himself has made? Or is it a claim made by economists who share some characteristics with Friedman? If so, which? I have thought of a few possibilities:

"Nonagenarian economists like Milton Friedman..."
"Economists of Jewish Hungarian origin like Milton Friedman..."
"Economists who have made controversial visits to South American dictatorships like Milton Friedman..."

But I'm guessing none of these are what the author intended... Seriously, what are we saying here? Is this a common "free market economist" position, or what? Mattley (Chattley) 16:44, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Opening

I reworked the opening to this article. “perceived exploitation” is a cop-out, so I removed it, and addressed the term in the second sentence. I also changed “In some poor countries, it is considered inappropriate…” to what I imagine was the original wording of “In many countries, it is considered inappropriate…” and removed the accompanying text “or ethnic minorities doing agricultural-based work.” Irony/sarcasm doesn’t work that well in this medium. I also added a couple references to the United Nations, and the ILO.--Bookandcoffee 22:47, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I restated the opening sentences. The first sentence reflects the definitions from here, and the definition from the UN is moved to the block quote at the end of the paragraph.--Bookandcoffee 02:15, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality: Undue Weight

This article gives undue weight to libertarian economic assessments of child labor, and those assessments are too often presented as neutral (I have tried to correct that somewhat), such as the case with Milton Friedman. A libertarian perspective on child labor, while welcome, needs to be presented as a minority opinion, at best. Libertarian economic history runs radically counter to the majority of historical assessments of the reality of child labor, esp. in the 19th century.Wbroun 18:09, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Isn't wiki about verifiability? If libertarian statements can be verified, then they belong. If you can provide verifiable statements that they are in the minority, then those belong too. No? The Gomm 21:39, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
The contributors who tilted the whole article towards a libertarian perspective are misusing wiki, and perverting history. Truly "verifying" a majority or a minority view of child labor history requires more than a quick reference to a scholarly text, if that's what you mean. Try looking at child labor history titles at Amazon. See how many you encounter that pontificate on how child labor was actually just a temporary glitch in the all-wise free market. Still, establishing the verifiability of a minority view requires a comprehensive grasp of a wide range of primary and secondary sources, IMO. But anyone with a modicum of knowledge about 19th century western social history soon encounters a fairly general, widespread perspective which has no axe to grind: that only when legal protections of children were applied to 19th industry did child exploitation begin to dissipate in the west. This is well represented in popular histories such as the Columbia Encyclopedia:(http://www.bartleby.com/65/ch/childlab.html) A fanatic such as Milton Friedman argues that "the free market" would have corrected the problem eventually. That's a nice theory, but it's beside the point. Shoving libertarian view onto 19th century economic history is more about trying to communicate a narrowly observed political dogma than presenting an accurate view of history.Wbroun 00:51, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
Maybe an historiographies element needs to be added to the article. Circeus 14:48, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Given the impressive number of (mostly) non-libertarian citations and sources added recently, can we now eliminate the NPOV tag? The Gomm 03:08, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Wbroun, on one hand you claim that 'quick references to scholarly texts' supporting this position are perverting history. Then you basically point us to all those nice scholarly texts on Amazon that supposedly support your position. You also engage in pretty aggressive complaints ('But anyone with a modicum of knowledge', 'shoving... onto', 'fanatic', 'political dogma')...
In total, I disagree with you that there IS something like objective history, except bare physical facts (and even those are often unknown enough to be used). Everything else is to a large level interpretation - what one sees as evil, another may see as irrelevant or only circumstantial to the matter at hand. Providing these viewpoints here as well is more important than providing a consensus. If you hate the weighing, you are free to add your own references. MadMaxDog 05:32, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I too am not really comfortable with including in the article Friedman's claim that "the Industrial Revolution saw a net decline in child labor" given that in the interview used as a source, Friedman doesn't say where he gets this quite dubious information from. Should we include a quote from a famous economist even if his claims have no basis in fact? It seems misleading in the extreme. Andrew Levine 08:38, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, your change is acceptable to me, if that is the case. MadMaxDog 08:58, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Do you mean the change that I have already made to the article, or the one I just proposed above? Andrew Levine 09:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I think the quote should stay, but I think it would be acceptable to qualify it as you did here in the discussion page (put I'd rather if that were kept brief, maybe like thus 'However, Friedman cited no sources for this claim of a reduction.'). That alright with you as a compromise?. MadMaxDog 10:33, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
That sounds fair. Andrew Levine 19:31, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Who is pushing "political dogma"? The theory and data presented by Clark Nardinelli ("Child Labor and the Factory Acts," Journal of Economic History, Dec. 1980) are widely accepted among economic historians. The fact that some historians who are ignorant of economic theory and the relevant data might disagree is irrelevant. By all means include their opinions if you like, but let's not pretend that Friedman is just making arbitrary statements. The link about Friedman is to an interview. Of course he didn't cite sources. Who cites sources during an interview? But the sources do exist, and I have changed the article to reflect that. Also, in a post about neutrality, it is shameful that you pretend as if "Progressive" historians have no axe to grind. Anti-capitalism may be mainstream among historians, but that doesn't make it a neutral position. Those who disagree with Nardinelli should be held to the same standards of theory and empirical evidence. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.174.49.148 (talk) 19:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC).

Isn't the whole point of the encyclopedia to enlighten and not simply document the current dogma? Who can say that Friedman's view is "the minority" view. It's possible a majority of economists would agree with Friedman? The group that interviewed him and made the videos cited obviously agreed with his position, that's why they documented those interviews. Friedman wasn't a lone voice, he was picked to represent that point of view in the videos because he was recognized for his skill in talking about complex economic issues and putting them in simple terms. Very few economists disagree with Milton Friedman. The so called "libertarian view" of child labor is part of what anyone studying the issue needs to be exposed to. The message here is "What you think you know about child labor may be completely wrong." And isn't that the purpose of the encycopedia? SecretaryNotSure 11:04, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

It doesen't matter what the majority of Economists think what matters is what historians say on it —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikicities (talk • contribs) 03:02, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

If I may come into this conversation, Iwould like to point out fr:Travail des enfants (ie the French version), on which a lot of work has been done recently, and that includes reviewing by a few contributors from different backgrounds (and with different opinions regarding economics), so it has reached a fairly neutral status. Maybe this can give ideas to translators and/or people who enjoy NPOV ? le Korrigan →bla 11:10, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
To the silly Ignorant person two comments above, Economists have much more right to talk about Child Labor than historians. Cerealspammer (talk) 05:34, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

To the Moron who wrote that this is the industrial revolution that wer'e talking about idiot —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikicities (talk • contribs) 05:38, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] pictures

The fact that all the pictures are of girls implies that child labor had more of an impact on them. But theres nothing in the text of the article to suggest that. Qvkfgmjqy 23:50, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Don't exactly consider three pictures as strongly impying that... MadMaxDog 01:40, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Adding some more weight

While I tended to come down on the side of the 'industrial age child labor wasn't much worse than medievial style child labor people here on this article, and also have removed the NPOV tag, I do think that the conditions of child labor - industrial revolution, prior, now - do not get enough weight. This article is now mostly about the perception of child labor, not the actuality. Anybody up to add some more on that? MadMaxDog 05:33, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Scope of the article

To me the scope of the artcle seems to be very limited. It refers very little to status of chile labor in south america, asia, africa, australia. I think we need to add some sections on these continents too to have a wider picture. sticksnstones 16:02, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Feel free! Even if you start out with a single country only. MadMaxDog 06:17, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Here's a good website about 800,000 child slaves of migrant workers in USA today: http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/indepth/child_labor/child_labor/index.asp?article=migrant Don't you think that child labor should be changed to child slavery? Sundiiiaaa 06:41, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
No. First of all, the source that you cite doesn't mention the words "slave" or "slavery." Changing the article name would be a clear violation of WP:POV policies; it would be akin to a vegan redirecting the meat article to murder. You've already been directed to Wikipedia policies about this sort of thing. OhNoitsJamie Talk 23:29, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
If I may answer you: I know the article doesn't say it's child slavery but it is because all work is slavery. Someday it will be recognized as child slavery. For now, I'm sorry, & forget that I asked that. Sundiiiaaa 23:33, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unexplained figure found on page

Image:Child labor red.svg
Explanation of Figure

Can somebody guess what this means and/or where it came from? The Gomm 18:34, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statistics

I propose that we add statistics to the "Defense of Child Labour" section. There seem to be a lot of NPOV issues with the fact that Friedman is basically the only source cited. If I found some reputable statistics about the need for child labour in under-developed countries: per capita income, the cost of basic food and housing, how much the children make and what hours they work, what they would be doing if they weren't working, etc., would that be an acceptable addition? -Bonnie 22:37, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Need to know history of child labor

Knowing the history of child labor would also provide the people working to eradicate this menace to have an idea why this unsocial act came into existence nilesh —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 122.164.29.244 (talk) 08:02, 18 April 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Confusing wording

The section on "Current Corporate Campaigns - Cocoa" contains this:

"The three children acting as class representative plaintiffs are proceeding anonymously, as John Does, because of feared retaliation by the farm owners where they worked. The complaint alleges their involvement in the trafficking, torture, and forced labor of children who cultivate and harvest cocoa beans which the companies import from Africa."

It's not clear who is the "they" of "their involvement". The farm owners from the previous sentence? The companies? It also is jarring because following on from the previous sentence where the children are "they", it reads initially as if the "their involvement" refers to the children. Crana 23:05, 29 April 2007 (UTC) (Sorry, forgot to sign before saving page).

[edit] Removal of questionable material

William Anderson writes,
"The pre-factory age was not a time of happy, contented kids. From 1730 to 1740, 75 percent of children in England died before age five. From 1810 to 1829, supposedly the evil age of the factory, infant mortality fell to 32 percent and would continue to drop. Capitalism and the industrial revolution gave youngsters a chance to survive. "[1]

The item quoted from, Free Market, appears to be a sort of newsletter, not a referreed journal. The article is more of an opinion piece than an academic paper. It includes no references. As such, the middle two sentences are not of encyclopedic quality. The first and final ones are just "some guy's opinion". It would be great if it could be sourced better, but as it stands -- removed. BrainyBabe 17:06, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

The first part may be verifiable, the 2nd part may be an "opinion" although probably an opinion based on history. While we're checking for verifiable facts and "referreed journals," can someone explain how reference to "Oliver Twist" is some sort of historical reference? It's well known that Dickens wrote a lot of things because of the drama, not historical accuracy. The reference to a Charles Dickens novel is sort of like saying life on other planets is more advanced than us as documented in Star Trek. SecretaryNotSure 21:53, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not really defending the inclusion of Dickens. But I think the intent of the mention was not as citable evidence per se, but as an illustration meant to be already familiar to readers. Basically, Oliver Twist is a metaphor for 19th C working conditions, not evidence for them. I guess on the same line, an article might compare the size of e.g. a newly documented deep-sea squid to ones portrayed in Verne's A Thousand Leagues. Such comparison might not be necessary, but it might conceivably aid a reader in imagining the topic. LotLE×talk 22:43, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.99.176.227 (talk) 18:25, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of companies alleged to employ child labor

We need one for the sake of completeness. Either in this article or as its own article. Michael 134.84.96.142 (talk) 00:30, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I’m ok with a list either in this article or one of its own for complete and well-rounded information on the matter. --DavidD4scnrt (talk) 20:29, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Child Labor in Foreign Countries

We also need information on Child Labor in China, possibly in the China article, or this one. Thecutnut (talk) 08:58, 5 March 2008 (UTC)