Globalization And Child Labor Analysis

I would describe Globalization as the spread of culture, knowledge, technology, and products internationally. The debates for and against globalization are very interesting in that there are infinite amounts of pros and cons. We can find an effect that Globalization has on almost any and every aspect of our lives because the world is constantly globalizing, so when it comes to things like child labor the links are extensive. From education to trade and the economy you come across things that you didn’t even expect and it leads to want to know more. You would think that with this new wave of information the number of children involved in child labor would decrease significantly. Technology is advancing so much more rapidly, so why does child

labor and the extreme forms, especially in Burma seem to be increasing. As we continue to advance in trade and agriculture as well, the need for labor should increase, therefore adults should be offered more opportunity for employment and income and in turn the number of children working to survive and essentially being exploited should decrease. To answer a few of these questions I feel like it’s necessary to take a look at the role of the education in these societies. Studies have shown that the countries with the most severe and greatest occurrences of child labor usually involve a large population of an uneducated workforce. This workforce; parents are forced to either make the decision to send their children to school or send their children to work based on their means. In a lot of cases of the developing world the cost of education is way more than the family income, so for parents the options are for one can you afford to send your child to school and still manage to put food on the table. In this case if the answer is yes, these children are able to maintain a full time schooling career without being forced to work. If not though we see the opposite effect. You could compare this to the capital market, if parents can afford to send their children to school they are more likely to do so because they expect that an education will enhance their Childs income in their future and can except to be hypothetically “paid back”, while on the flip side those who cannot necessarily afford to send their children to school have to decide whether or not to take out of their savings In order to send their children to school, and most of the time for parents in this situation there is no real choice. These children have no choice but to work because the wellbeing of the family depends on it and ultimately in these families the sheer need for additional income outweighs the benefits of an education. Next I think it is safe to take a look at the implications of trade, developed countries such as the United States, Japan and Europe are viewed as first world countries because among other factors they have mastered the rule of trade. In these first world countries we see and hear about the least occurrences of child labor because economically these countries flourish. In order to be successful in this wave of globalization the mission is to focus on producing goods at the cheapest price while still maintaining the greatest profit. Instead of producing enough goods for your people to survive your goal is to manufacture what you can in order to trade for the products that you do not produce in an abundance. For countries in the third world they are at a disadvantage because as globalization and open trade advances, so does the need for unskilled labor and thus the phenomenon of child labor. Ultimately, this separates the developed and developing worlds because it becomes an issue of labor and capital. While developed countries produce products concentrated around capital, developing countries are prone to producing products that are more labor intensive. So as trade increases and affects both of these worlds, the capital in developed countries along with the labor in developing countries increases just the same, unfortunately first world powers get the better end of the stick but the even bigger losers in this game of trade are the children affected.
With globalization in developing countries comes the issue of outside multinational corporations and manufactures.

Aside from extralegal activity a portion of Burma’s economy stems from jobs provided by large international companies. Although they do allow for more jobs and essentially more money for citizens they also serve as a hindrance for individual economic growth because of the new found competition for local companies and also the implications towards child labor. I was extremely surprised at the number of American corporations that have been or are currently one way or another involved in forced and child labor. I recently came across a story about a 28 year old woman who stumbled upon a letter in her Saks Fifth Ave. shopping bag. This letter was from a Chinese prisoner who wrote numerous letters and stuffed them in these bags in hopes that someone on the outside would someday find and read one, little did he know that the letter would end up in West Harlem, In this letter he explains to this stranger how he is being treated, he compares his life to slavery, he spends over 13 hours making thousands of bags every day and experiences abuse regularly. The point that I am trying to make is that Saks Fifth Av is a large corporation, items in this store range from fifty to over a thousand dollars, they have a revenue of billions of dollars yet their profit comes from forced laborers. Companies like Hayne’s, Walmart and JC Penny, stores that most Americans know of and have

walked into at least one time in their lives have some connection to forced labor and or child labor. Another major corporation involved in the exploitation of these children is the largest tobacco company and cigarette manufacturers in the United States Phillip Morris. This corporation produces Marlboro, Benson & Hedges, L&M’s and Virginia slims, some of the most widely known and sold brands of cigarettes. They admitted that at least 72 kids under the age of ten years old were working for Phillip Morris USA on tobacco farms where they were exposed to nicotine poisoning and many other hazards. These children would spend over 13 hours on a tobacco field where they would go home with rashes all over their bodies for not even one whole percentage of what Phillip Morris USA was making, and then there is Victoria’s Secret, a store that almost everyone has heard about, billions of women shop here and of all the corporations, this one is definitely one of the most disappointing. Victoria’s Secret advertised “fair trade” cotton meaning that they value the people who produce their products more than the profit they make from these products, so these people are supposed to be working under good conditions and paid fairly, on the contrary, to advertisement a majority of their cotton farming is done in Africa, apparently many of the cotton farmers had been complaining that they did not have the means to continue growing “fair trade” cotton without the use of child labor. When Victoria’s Secret was confronted with this report they basically shrugged it off, released a statement about how they would “look into” the issue and later removed the term “fair trade” from their advertisements. The whole point of using the term and practicing or in this case, pretending to care about “ fair trade” was to spread awareness, By removing the “fair trade” brand from their advertisements and disassociating themselves Victoria’s Secret robbed these women and children slaving away on cotton fields of the little that they actually were receiving. Their reaction to this was sort of one of indifferences like because they were not the ones physically screaming at and beating these children they were not responsible. Most of these corporations get by with just a slap on the wrist or even nothing at all, the issue is skirted under the rug and basically becomes irrelevant. I find it extremely ironic how when caught and confronted a lot of these corporations refuse to admit to any wrong doing. The United States has some of the most profound rules and regulations against child labor and some of the most severe penalties for offenders. We have the Fair Labor Standards Act to protect a child’s right to an education and to restrict how many hours teenagers from fourteen to sixteen can work, There are worker unions for almost every trade and career in the United States yet major companies acknowledge that forced labor and child labor is inhumane, but are involved in child labor outside of the United States, It’s as if as soon as we are not talking about American children the standards of living and the right to an education and childhood disappears. These multinational corporations and even smaller companies depersonalize the experiences of hundreds of children so that they can continue to make a profit and America can continue to be the land of the free while the cries of children right next door become nonexistent or irrelevant. This is what Schwalbe is talking about when he describes the cost of American Privilege. When it does not have to do with us or directly affects our lives no one cares. Privilege among other things keep Americans and other strong powers such as Europe and Japan from looking into some of their own practices and acknowledging fowl play when it affects another human being outside of our bubble.
All in all I have come to the conclusion that as easy as it might be to try and point the finger at globalization, this is honestly not the real issue, child labor is more prominent and has the greatest effects on countries in the developing world rather than the developed world not because we are globalizing but because developing countries have less access to globalization.

While adults in Burma and not to mention other “third world” countries make a lot of the products traded from Europe to Japan they do not get to enjoy any of the luxuries, so while they facilitate globalization they are not necessarily a part of the globalization process. Sadly, as the market continues to grow, and new innovations and idea’s flow from place to place, the little boy working in the tea shop or the little girl sewing from dusk to dawn in a factory will continue to do so not because there is not enough food in the world to feed them and their families or because there is not enough money to send them and their siblings to school but because the market, this system of labor and the demand for it has to continue. Parents still have to find a means to provide for themselves and their families and it is sad to say that sometimes this in tales children taking on adult roles and responsibilities. I started off originally trying to understand why a country such as Myanmar that in the scheme of things has the potential to be economically stable, is so impoverished and if and how this and the

controversial institution of globalization affects the lives of Burma’s unfortunate children, I do not know if I can fully answer this question because I do not feel like there is necessarily a black and white answer, does globalization affect child labor I would say a definite yes but are the affects bad?, are they good?, again I would have to say yes to both. Child Labor and the extreme cases, especially are driven by poverty. It’s a failure amongst government and not just the government of these countries affected by this practice but a failure of world government. We have this system of education, economics and trade that is set up to transfer information and serve as a connection for all of humanity, yet there is still that division of who is included and who is not. It’s like that one kid on the playground that’s always chosen last in softball except for its thousands of children. There are large multinational corporations from India and Asia to Africa essentially facilitating child labor so I do not see child labor subsiding in Burma, frankly it is not going to disappear today or tomorrow, but I can only hope that as the world continues to develop, globalization develops with it.