Why Do American Consumers Have Any Responsibility For Child Workers In Other Countries

Do American consumers have any responsibility for child workers in other countries who make the goods they purchase? Why or why not?

When we go to a food market, many of the food that we eat has a list of ingredients, as well as nutrition facts. This allow us, if you are interested, in eat healthier foods, etcetera. Not knowing whether the clothing you are wearing, or the food you are eating was made possible by child labor is alarming. I understand the need for children to “help in the household”; however helping and demanding children to work for long periods of time is completely different. Boycotting Hanes for example, is not the real answer to the problem. The root cause of the problem with child labor is poverty. What we need is to find a way to help the families that are so desperate for monetary assistance to survive, they are willing to send their children into the workplace. The answer to child labor is to help families increase their income, to reduce their dependency on the income of the child (Edmonds & Pavcnik, 2005 pg. 216).

However we can definitely control, or influence in the way children are treated in the other market areas. Article 32 and 36 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child state “children…must be protected from economic exploitation…from hazardous work and all other forms of exploration” (Lopez, 2015). We must make any company that is trying to export goods and services to the US to provide a way to reduce schooling cost and improve or assist in making education achievable. This all have the power to reduce child labor ((Edmonds & Pavcnik, 2005 pg. 215). We must demand that any export that enters to the United States is not necessarily free of child labor, but if child labor is involved, it is in a humane