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This week there has been a huge row again about a major UK clothing chain using child labour in India. I have a problem with this. It is not possible to judge the rest of the world by Western standards. In some countries childhood is a luxury and ends very quickly, almost as soon as a child is able to contribute to the family income. Even in this country in the not so distant past children were down coalmines and up chimneys, utilising their small stature where it was needed. A series was shown recently on British TV where a group of teenagers were taken to work in the garment producing factories of India. This was designed to show them where their clothes actually came from. During the programme, no doubt prompted by the producers one of the girls went on a campaign to find out if any of the factories were employing children. Eventually she, accompanied by an Indian man who was looking for these children, came across one. She started on a tirade of how awful it was while the boy sat looking frightened and bemused. It was explained to her that if this boy did not work his family would starve, he being the only one able to provide an income. And there we have it. If the young lad worked in England Social Services would provide for him and his family, but he doesn’t, he lives in India. As a child I used to live in Nigeria where youngsters are put to work routinely and I had equal amounts of respect and pity for the children I saw there. While I was free to play and go to school, they had to work. But without an alternative to provide for their family how are they supposed to survive?
From the series I watched it looked as though the Indian authorities were clamping down on the use of child labour, or maybe it was just a charitable group trying to get children into school, but without a living alternative, despite the best will in the world and with a genuine desire that all children be free to play and learn, what choice do these children and their families really have? Maybe someone can tell me.
RSS 
You are perfectly correct. The pitiable condition of women and child workers in the mills, mines and factories of Britain could be brought to an end only after the prosperity ushered in by new inventions and the social reforms that followed the industrial revolution. The poor that lived in squalor slowly came out of it after a series of Acts enacted by the British parliament in the course of the 19th century. Let us only hope that India will do similar things for its under-privileged women and children. But till that is achieved, people like those in the board of Primark need to be a little more considerate.
Children may earn their next meal but not at the expense of their safety and health.
What can be done, and what is actually done, is to have pertinent laws that go after those who exploit children, and have child workers in dangerous and exploitative conditions.
Such dangerous conditions include presence of chemicals, no proper ventilation at work places, extended working hours, and all other labor and employment rights infringements.
Employers say, the parents of the children want them to be employed and volunteer to put the children to work. This is largely true.
The exploitation proceeds from the human greed to make more money while paying little to the laborers. The same greed was responsible for slavery of adults, even entire communities, in many parts of the world.
