Import ban not a fix for child labour

The recent release of a report on child labour by World Vision has stimulated debate about the role Canada plays in contributing to this global problem by importing products made by children that are worth billions of dollars.

According to the report, 168 million children worldwide are involved in child labour — a significant number that undoubtedly calls for action by the global community. The report proposes Canadian consumers be provided greater access to information regarding supply chains of the products they buy and whether they involve forced or child labour.

Moreover, the government needs to enact proper legislation to encourage companies to outline steps taken to address child labour.

While it is commendable the report tries to place an important global development issue at the centre of public debate in Canada, it is important to realize just how severe and complex the problem of child labour is. There are no simple solutions to this menace.

Child labour is an unethical practice; however, curbing this menace requires finding solutions that address the root cause of this problem. Restricting imports of products involving child labour does not do this and may actually aggravate the plight of these children, rather than improving their well-being.

This may not make sense to someone raised in Canada, a country that provides free schooling to its children and has a generous social protection system for the underprivileged. In most low-income countries where child labour prevails, the social security arrangements to protect the poor from hunger and starvation are either absent or extremely inadequate. This is where the root of this problem lies: poverty and lack of social protection. Schooling is not free in many of these countries and where it is, the quality is so low that it does not offer any prospects for gainful employment.

To make ends meet and to escape hunger and starvation, there is often no choice for these children and their families but to resort to child labour. One wonders what options these children would have if countries such as Canada stopped importing products that offer these children some means of survival.

They would either perish in poverty or still be working with much lower wages in local industries. It is quite unlikely that these children would go to school as schooling is not free and the cost of books and tuition is beyond the means of these families.

None of this is to deny the significance of penalizing businesses that are involved in forced labour and have hazardous working conditions, but it is important to realize child labour is not always “forced” but is often chosen by the children and their parents who have no other means of survival.

Attending school and enjoying childhood is the basic human right of every child, but if the choice is between perishing in poverty and surviving with some income through labour, it is not hard to see which of the two is the lesser evil.

Basic economic principles teach us that human beings everywhere are rational decision makers who carefully weigh the costs and benefits of their actions. Child labour can only be addressed by altering the incentive structure facing these poor children and their families by reducing poverty and the cost of schooling.

The ultimate solution lies in fostering inclusive economic growth that provides employment opportunities for everyone, increases the returns to schooling and reduces poverty.

This needs to be coupled with fiscal policies aimed at improving the taxation measures and collection (tax collection is extremely low in many low-income countries) and targeting it effectively toward the poor in the form of poverty-reduction programs.

These measures can only be taken by the governments of low-income countries, but ironically, due to poor political institutions, these governments have few incentives and little capacity to formulate and implement such policies.

Canada can help by encouraging democratic governance around the world, and by increasing its foreign aid commitments and targeting it effectively toward poverty eradication programs, particularly education.

Canada recently decided to increase its foreign aid commitment toward women, which is a positive step.

But the overall aid commitment has declined and remains much below the UN recommended level of 0.7 per cent of GDP.

A holistic approach to addressing child labour and other humanitarian problems around the world requires that Canada increases its foreign aid commitment while ensuring that its utilization is transparent, efficient and is targeted where it is needed the most.