Child labor - where do we draw the line?: Sustainable Business: WorldofGood.com by eBay

I attended a Nairobi Rotary meeting the other night and a local college student presented what I considered a fabulous idea to help children living in orphanages in Kenya make and save money towards their future - be it for college or to start a business once they finish secondary school (high school). I won't tell about the product she hopes to produce as she hasn't launched yet, but the program is based on the kids starting at age 13-14 to craft the item, which will then be marketed and a portion of the sales price be deposited into their savings account. Given her calculations and the amount of money she hoped to give each youth per item, the potential to save close to 25,000 U.S. by the time they graduated was presented.

What does the community think about kids starting to create things at that age (13-14) for the sake of their future? What about slightly younger kids in similar situations? I know it's tempting to think of such programs as exploitative, but the simple fact here is that there are thousands of kids for which the future is a blank slate with no prospects due to their status as orphans. If a project is proposed to help them create things and save money (that won't take away from their studies) is that child labor? Where do we draw the line?

POSTS: 2

POSTED BY: Sh0ppingEc0247

ON Nov-13-09 | 13:00:02

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I think if the kids are able to choose if they want to start working at a young age to better their future, it's not a problem. The fact that they have a chance to do so, is pretty amazing. However, I would be concerned about the environment they would be in. Would they be under safe working conditions and not work for long hours?

POSTS: 7

POSTED BY: Megan

ON Nov-13-09 | 16:14:36

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Nov 13, 2009 -- 2:00PM, Sh0ppingEc0247 wrote:

I think if the kids are able to choose if they want to start working at a young age to better their future, it's not a problem. The fact that they have a chance to do so, is pretty amazing. However, I would be concerned about the environment they would be in. Would they be under safe working conditions and not work for long hours?

I agree Stephanie! I think the hope is that these activities would be in addiion to other activities and monitored to ensure they didn't detract frm studying etc. However, we've all heard horror stories of children's homes and orphanages gone bad - so I think it would be extremely important to monitor and have some accountability for these programs.