This affair elicited the following wry commentary from
economists Drusilla Brown, Alan Deardorif, and Robert
Stern:
"While Baden Sports can quite credibly claim that their
soccer balls are not sewn by children, the relocation of
their production facility undoubtedly did nothing for their
former child workers and their families".
This is far from being a unique case. Threatened with
legal reprisals and "reputation risks" (being named-and-
shamed by overzealous NGO's) - multinationals engage in
preemptive sacking. More than 50,000 children in
Bangladesh were let go in 1993 by German garment
factories in anticipation of the American never-legislated
Child Labor Deterrence Act.
Former Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, observed:
"Stopping child labor without doing anything else could
leave children worse off. If they are working out of
necessity, as most are, stopping them could force them
into prostitution or other employment with greater
personal dangers. The most important thing is that they be
in school and receive the education to help them leave
poverty".
NGO-fostered hype notwithstanding, 70% of all children
work within their family unit, in agriculture. Less than 1
percent are employed in mining and another 2 percent in
construction. Again contrary to NGO-proffered panaceas,
education is not a solution. Millions graduate every year
in developing countries - 100,000 in Morocco alone. But
unemployment reaches more than one third of the
workforce in places such as Macedonia.
Children at work may be harshly treated by their
supervisors but at least they are kept off the far more
menacing streets. Some kids even end up with a skill and
are rendered employable.
"The Economist" sums up the shortsightedness,
inaptitude, ignorance, and self-centeredness of NGO's
neatly:
"Suppose that in the remorseless search for profit,
multinationals pay sweatshop wages to their workers in
developing countries. Regulation forcing them to pay
higher wages is demanded... The NGOs, the reformed
multinationals and enlightened rich-country governments
propose tough rules on third-world factory wages, backed
up by trade barriers to keep out imports from countries
that do not comply. Shoppers in the West pay more - but
willingly, because they know it is in a good cause. The
NGOs declare another victory. The companies, having
shafted their third-world competition and protected their
domestic markets, count their bigger profits (higher wage
costs notwithstanding). And the third-world workers
displaced from locally owned factories explain to their
children why the West's new deal for the victims of
capitalism requires them to starve".
NGO's in places like Sudan, Somalia, Myanmar,
Bangladesh, Pakistan, Albania, and Zimbabwe have
become the preferred venue for Western aid - both
humanitarian and financial - development financing, and
emergency relief. According to the Red Cross, more
money goes through NGO's than through the World Bank.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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