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Calligraphic for being an incredible mentor throughout this project. Without his fullest support the completion of this project wouldn’t have been a success. Author would also thank the immense support of family and friends for the continuous support given by them till the end of this project. Lastly the author would also like to thank the PIPIT library Staff who helped the author by providing necessary reading material and other resources to make this project successful. Lame AT contents List of Tables List of Figures List of Images Abstract 7 Introduction References 10
Child labor is a substantial and massive socioeconomic problem. Millions of children work in the worst forms of labor in certain parts of many countries. * In the context of India, the Indian constitution refers to as any individual who is under the age of 14 to be considered as a child. What is Child Labor? According to the International Labor Organization (ILL) Corporate Website (2013), child labor is defined as “work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development”. Child labor differs from child employment.
In the assignment the author focuses only on child labor, not child employment. Child labor refers to, as mentioned above, the employment of children below the minimum age limits of the country and engaging them in economic activities that withdraws from their childhood rights (also known as hazardous work) and child employment refers to the employment of children within the minimum age limits for any economic activity whether they are given a payment or not which does not affect any of their childhood rights. Child Barbour is connected to global business directly and more commonly indirectly.
Child labor holds back the development of the child and his/her future. The Author will be arguing about the main indirect mean as the malpractices of the supply chain which has a huge impact on the international businesses and even though the suppliers are at wrong the businesses should be held responsible. Current Situation By the end of 2008, 200 million children were in child labor while 115 million of these children involve in work which are hazardous to them. 95% of these children side in rural areas; mainly work in the agriculture (60%), service (25. %) and the industrial sector (7%). (ILL Website, 2013) Figure 1. 0 – Children in Employment (5-14 year) by Region (million) Source – Dialog et al. (2010) According to Hogue 1 U, It Is International Tanat Aslant-Paschal region contains ten most number of children in employment and it is followed by Sub-Sahara Africa. Since the majority of child labor is seen in these two regions, the author used several examples from these regions to support the topic. Why do Children have to work in the supply chain? Many children have to work because of poverty in the above mentioned regions.
In these regions poverty is a major issue, people will be prepared to earn any amount for any task. Suppliers take this as an opportunity to get extremely low prices. For example, in Sir Lank, a child earns an average of 3820/- rupees per month which is equal to only $25 (Child Activity Survey, 2008/09). This is an extremely low wage rate. Children work for their own families well being. Numerous reasons lead to children to go to work at supply chains but isn’t child labor necessary for poor families to survive? Child labor is not Just a family matter only. It is a societal, cultural and human rights issue.
Child labor should not exist. Child Labor and International Business The world is constantly becoming one where countries, organizations and people are being interdependent with the interchange of new products, ideas, world views and reducing barriers and other restrictions to enter between countries. This is identified as Globalization where it can also benefit as well as have adverse effects to the global population. International businesses tend to move on to other countries with the intention of maximizing their profits by outsourcing and opening up plants for their manufacturing divisions where cheap labor is available..
Child Labor and the Supply Chain What International Businesses does not realize is that when the global demand is for cheaply produced goods their suppliers have to find the cheapest labor force possible and this mean that children are forced to work and on some cases child labor is free. The supply chains of many well recognized businesses have been practicing According to Joanna (2013), “Why Child labor exists? It exists because often times it s ‘invisible’. This statement supports the International Business community as child labor is invisible to them.
Maybe on some level some businesses are not fully aware if their supply chain uses child labor because the suppliers can falsify the image of their way of employment. A recent famous case was when one of the tech giant Apple discovered that one of their local recruited company “Foxing”, a Taiwanese company that assembles Apple products who has forged reports to Apple and the case was provoked when Apple carried out an internal audit of and also a series of suicidal incident of workers (Guardian, 2013).
Another scenario was when one of world’s top sports clothing brand “Nikkei” was accused of practicing intense child labor in the forms of sweat shops in China and Indonesia supply chains. Nine’s reply for a However, companies cannot Algebras tense Issues as tense are mall responsibilities of them. According to ILL (2007), “A good dose of common sense can also go a long way in determining which tasks are not suitable for children”. This clearly Justifies that international businesses know what is happening around the world and they hooked have some common sense.
These businesses should communicate with the local authorities of the country and be fully aware of the child labor situation of the country. Media and public Eliminating Child Labor from the Supply Chain The employer can then determine which suppliers are employing individuals who are classified as child laborers under the national laws. This can be done via internal employee auditing as it will confirm the respective ages of the employees and also personal interviews can be held.