Reply to post: This is not nearly as simplistic as it is portrayed

This is not nearly as simplistic as it is portrayed

Child labour is not the problem. Poverty is the problem.

If you simply stop purchasing stuff produced by the exploitation of poor people, then instead of being exploited, those men. women and children will instead do something worse to get food - or simply die of starvation. Which I suppose will ultimately eliminate the moral dilemma. And why focus on just one area anyway? Plenty of common goods are produced by exploiting the poor of all ages. Cheap clothes that sell in the millions, as just one example. The raw ingredients for many medicines are obtained using similar cheap labour. Even the way we dispose of our household waste puts children halfway around the World at risk.

The same practises took place in the UK up until a century or so ago - the very lifestyle we enjoy today is founded on generations of exploited people all over the World. Just because we managed to raise our standard of living over quite a few decades until we now no longer need to do such things does not mean that it would be possible to suddenly stop doing them in less developed countries without the consequences being far worse for those considered victims than their present conditions. Try going without any food for just 4 days and see how many of your high-and-mighty moral convictions you will be prepared to sacrifice in order to get a bowl of rice to eat. For many 3rd World kids the choices for what to do today are (1) starvation, (2) work in a dangerous mine or factory, (3) become a thief (even more dangerous), or (4) if you are lucky, give 15 minutes or so of sexual favours to a rich local or Western tourist and relax with a full belly for the rest of the day. How would you choose to spend the day?

Stop colbalt mining etc. and crime & violence will rise, with more thieves (including child thieves) being killed. On the plus side, sex tourism will become a little bit cheaper (until the local family blackmails the tourist, that is).

I do not have any perfect solution to the problem, but prohibiting the purchase of goods made using what rich Westerners consider morally reprehensible methods is certainly no solution whatsoever - we should do that only *after* the main problem has been solved and we have ensured that the displaced workers will not suffer even more as a result. Which at its most basic means removing the sort of extreme poverty that drives people into working in such dangerous low-paid jobs.