Ethical Issues in Child Labor What is Child Labor? Child labor is work that children should not be doing, work that may harm their health and keeps them without education. While working children have no time for attending schools and get education that is the most important thing for their future life and success. But not all work done by children should be accepted as child labor. In other words, if a work doesn’t harm child’s health or personal development (educational issues), it is generally accepted as something positive and useful. Such activities develop children’s skills, provide experience and formulate them to be part of society. The term “Child Labor” is when children do work that damages their health or hamper mental or physical …show more content…
115 million of them are estimated to work in the worst forms of child labor, 53 million of them work in hazardous conditions. Most of them work in Asia, Africa and Latin America. 60 % of them work in Asia. About 2.5 million children work in much more developed economies. Child labor exists even though laws eliminate it. There are many reasons that cause child labor: Poverty and unemployment levels are high – As you see, the most of employed children work in less developed countries by economy. In such countries poor families and children may rely upon child labor in order to improve their chances of attaining basic necessities. According to U.N statistics more than one-fourth of the people around the world live in poverty that is caused by the high unemployment levels. Free education is limited – U.N estimated that approximately 75 million children were not attending school. The education for the whole world’s children costs 10-30 Billion dollars that is 0.7% - 2% of the annual cost of global military spending. Laws or codes of conduct are …show more content…
Consequentialist theory followers. Consequentialist theory followers focus mostly on the consequences of the decision and the action. The most famous consequentialist theory is Utilitarianism. This theory follows the principle of utility which assumes that the decision is ethical if it maximizes benefits to the society and minimizes harms. Here you look on the difference between benefits and harms for the society and if the benefits are greater than the decision or an action is considered as ethical, if lower – unethical. Here it is important to identify the stakeholders and an effects on them from actions or decisions of a company. “You can think of a stakeholder as a person or organization that can affect or be affected by your organization. Stakeholders can come from inside or outside of the organization. Examples of stakeholders of a business include customers, employees, stockholders, suppliers, non-profit community organizations, government, and the local community among many others.” Shawn
Being a child has always been described as anyone under 18 because at this age it is carefree fun and no job. However, that has not always been the case for some children. The issue of child labor is addressed in the speech given by Florence Kelley at the convention of National American Woman Suffrage Association. Kelley uses numerous rhetorical strategies in order to bring light to the travesty that is child labor and bring change.
Joselin Reynoso May 1, 2016 Swk 239 Sanjiri is a 10yr old boy from India who has been working for 2 yrs now gathering crops. Sanjiri has never attended any school because his family needs him to work so he could help financially. All over the world for centuries now we have children just like Sanjiri, who cannot attend school because they come from families who are very poor. Not only does child labor apply to those children who are working in factories or in agriculture but also to girls who are taken as wives or for prostitution and boys who are taken as soldiers.
Consequentialism is a type of normative ethical theory, such theories provide criteria for moral evaluation and may recommend rules or decision procedures for people to follow in acting morally. Consequentialism in its most general form, hold that the moral quality of an action is completely determined by its consequences. Moral quality is a function of consequences and nothing else. The consequentialist theories of moral evaluation have two parts. One part is an account for what is good and the other part is an account of how to approach the good.
We all have different views of the world that we live in, and we all have our stories to tell. But for the millions of kids that are being captured and sold to factories around the world, telling a story about their life would be an impossible thing to do. Unexpectedly, most cases when children are found working in some sort of unimaginable field, they are working to help their family out of poverty. With the income of only $15 a month, they suffered severed beatings forming unrepairable injuries and neglect leading to physical and emotional damage. Child labor happens for many reasons, being stolen, turned into a slave and poverty are the main reasons.
Consequentialism is based on two principles: ¥ Whether an act is right or wrong depends only on the results of that act ¥ The more good consequences an act produces, the better or more right that act It gives us this guidance when faced with a moral dilemma: ¥ A person should choose the action that maximizes good consequences And it gives this general guidance on how to live: People should live so as to maximize good consequences ¥ for example, according to rule consequentialism we consider lying to be wrong because we know that in general lying produces bad consequences.
“In India, innocent and poor children are victims of child labor,” Malala Yousafzai. Child labor is when adults force minors, people under 18, to do work for them whether it be for paying of their parents debt or as a form as slavery. In the Victorian Era children were put to strenuous labor but in present day most countries now have laws that deny kids under 16 to have jobs, but some countries allow child labor but more striking evidence is in the similarities between the Victorian Era and present day both having companies lure in children only then forcing them to work. Many things have changed from the Victorian Era including that there are laws in place to stop child labor. “in the eighty years between 1780 and 1830, more than 4,000 local acts were passed and between six and seven million acres or just over twenty percent of the land area of Britain was enclosed,”(vichist.blogspot.com,2010).
There is a big international controversy if child labor is good or bad. Dating back to the late 1700’s, child labor has become a huge problem for the safety of children around the world. Children are missing out on the opportunity to learn and be educated because of forced child labor. Furthermore, the conditions that children work in are not safe and are very hazardous to their health and well being. Child labor is not as much of a problem in the United States however, it is a big problem in countries in poverty who think that child labor is a way of life and necessary to support their economy.
1. How do these testimonies present the realities of child labor? Give specific examples. The testimonies give us a brief snapshot of the condition in which children worked.
Child Labor Child labor, according to International Labor Organization, is an employment of children whose work deprives them of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development. However, legislators in developing nations have an alternate definition of child labor. They get a kick out of the chance to characterize child labor as work that hinders the improvement and prosperity of children. Economists lean toward a less subjective definition while in economists view, child labor as the economic activities in which children take an interest. This definition incorporates subjugation and prostitution, however it stretches out to the sorts of activities that children consistently take part
Starting in 1880, the evils of child labor were increasing fast. Children weren’t just working on their family’s farm; they were slaving in mills, sweatshops, and factories. Children were not only losing a chance at an education, but they were becoming ill, injured, and some were even being killed because of the dangerous working conditions they were slaving in. The dangers of children in the workforce are well-known, and many U.S. people disagree with the fact that children, most younger than eight, are able to work in such evil conditions. “That the evil exists; that certainly hundreds of thousands and more, probably over one million, children are even now either being killed or utterly destroyed for that citizenship on which this free
Malek El Jubeily 21/July/2015 PHIL 210 Final Paper Dr. Bashshar Haydar Consequentialism is the theory were to judge something as moral or unmoral you must see if the consequence of the act is good, in different cases of consequentialism like egoism, altruism, and utilitarianism good is defined in different ways where in egoism the good is the act that brings the best consequence to yourself, altruism says that the good is the act that brings the best consequence for everyone except himself and utilitarianism that says the good is the act that brings maximum happiness and minimum pain to maximum number of people, and any other theory that looks at the effect of the act and not the act itself is considered a consequentialist moral theory.
Workers that worked in sweatshops were treated poorly. Especially, children because the boss could hire children. The children would work for any price and it was better for the boss to hire the children rather than adults. So the children would get low pay when the boss couldn’t do that with adults. The children that were hired to work in sweatshops deserved to be in school.
Poverty is undoubtedly an important factor in the use of child labor; Families are under the poverty line or downforce to complement their children to work low household income. The elimination of poverty, however, is only the first step towards the elimination of child labor. Poor children and their families can count on child labor to improve their chances of meeting the basic needs. Over a quarter of the world's people live in extreme poverty, according to United Nations statistics in 2005. Strengthening poverty in some parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America causes many children to become child
According to “From the Sweat of our Children,” “More than 200 million children today are child labourers,” (1). This staggering statistic is true in modern society of today because higher class business owners that want to take advantage of children who are willing to work in brutal conditions for little to no pay. Child labor is taking away millions of children’s rights which include the right to education, right to play, and the right not to be discriminated against. Child labor is an important problem because it is putting the lives of children at risk mentally, physically, and emotionally. Due to the presence of child labor, millions of children’s rights are being taken away from them especially in the countries of China, Pakistan, and
For these children, crushing accidents, amputations, and fractures account for 10% of all work-related injuries” (“Module 4: Child Labor and Child Abuse in Developing Countries,” n. d.). Children who live in developing countries work in bad conditions, where accidents are plentiful. “Child labor not only negatively affects a child’s health, but it also negatively impacts his/her ability to receive schooling and perform academically” (“Module 4: Child Labor and Child Abuse in Developing Countries,” n. d.). Not to mention, child labor affects the ability that children have to obtain education and to also perform well