Blog 12

After reading these articles about the immoralities of child labor, I noticed how many of the authors suggest aggressive ways to end child labor, like boycotting a company or raiding a factory. These solutions to end child labor are proven ineffective and slightly immoral themselves. Satyarthi wrote about raiding factories for years freeing captive children while simultaneously having her comrades murdered with presumably more casualties- maybe even some children the tried to save. Along with the ethical issues that raiding these factories are just as illegal as child servitude, in the long run the good still does not outweigh the bad when it comes to of freeing the children. SACCS, the company that frees these children, admitted they have been attacked back after such raids directly putting the surviving children into imminent danger. If survived, these children have no stable environment, no education, no skill, and will most likely forced back to the factories by familial debt. Satyarthi mentions that no matter how many factories raided the amount till the rise of child labor rises by the thousands.

Boycotting a large company, like Walmart, may be a great protest at face value, however for every 100 individuals boycotting there are 1000 individuals ignorant to the issues and where there goods are coming from that will continue to buy from these large corporations. Yes, boycotting might bring awareness to the situation but in the ever-changing faced-paced world we live in today it seems that the “out of sight out of mind” principle influences society. People may protest against such horrors like child labor for some time but without the physicality seeing its impact, the morale will soon fizzle.

I propose an moral and impacting way of raising awareness that puts the public face to face with the issue. Much like what Satyarthi had done with marking carpets made free of child labor, I believe creating a marker for every carpet and other good imported that was made by children would be much more effective. With governments knowing how much of an issue child labor is in these underdeveloped countries, the only moral option is to get rid of the GATT and imposing this new law. Several of the authors have said that consumer push back is the only effective way change has come about, and by doing this consumers from all over would have to first hand face the knowledge of where their goods are truly coming from before purchasing them.  This will soon give rise to a knowing society that will push back and speak for unrepresented children without putting those children in any physical harm.