Simply Smith

A RECENT report in a national newspaper highlighted the use of Third World child labour.

Regardless of the facts behind the particular case mentioned, the story brings into sharp focus the plight of an estimated 150 million working children.

I have to say that I find it very difficult to understand a philosophy (if you can call it that) that puts profits before human contentment, whether those particular humans are children or adults.

Even if the profits were being distributed to the individuals concerned I would question the ethic that insists that someone under the age of, say, fifteen should work excessive hours.

We in the so-called Developed World have long since outlawed the practice of sending young children up chimneys, working with dangerous machinery or handling toxic chemicals.

Yet these same conditions (with the possible exception of sending children up chimneys) seem to apply in a good many developing countries. Is what is wrong for our children right for children in India, Pakistan and a host of other poor countries?

I am sure that the parents of these exploited children love them equally as much as we love our own children.

They too would wish to see them obtain an education and grow into strong, prosperous adults. What kind of a chance is life throwing at these youngsters: dangerous working conditions, long hours and no schooling?

It saddens me to say but it seems to be our own relentless pursuit of demanding increasingly lower prices that is helping to create these iniquitous conditions.

We are conditioned to search for goods at the lowest possible price, regardless of the plight of those who make them.

The tragedy of it is that when we as consumers reject home-produced, and perhaps more expensive, goods for cheaper imports, not only do we accept the notion of child labour but we also do our own domestic manufacturing capacity a great disservice.

These conditions are produced by the Market and the Market (we are told) is god. This god, then, is an evil god and should have no place in our hearts.

Which of you would see our English children disfigured, unschooled or otherwise used for the sake of the comfort of a rich American or a rich Australian?

However, you can make a difference. Encourage your MP to put pressure on the Government to increase its aid for the Third World: these parents and their children should not have to enter the world of Charles Dickens. Support charities like Action Aid that assist these countries to develop naturally.

Ask the suppliers of goods that are suspiciously cheap where they have come from and under what conditions were they manufactured. If they don't know tell them they should know and then go elsewhere.

We tend to think that our individual voice is small and not heard but if everyone sings from the same song-sheet the movers and shakers will soon learn the tune.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.