People used to march for jobs, most famously and emotively from Jarrow to London. Yesterday a global march against jobs, which began in the Philippines and will end in Geneva, reached Glasgow to publicise the campaign to end child labour. It, too, is highly emotive. On moral grounds the cause it champions cannot be refuted. Only the flint-hearted could fail to be moved by the stories told by the plucky former child workers visiting Glasgow. In an ideal world there would be no child labour or need for the brand of consumer politics which boycotts football strips made by South Asian children working long hours for a pittance.
But this is not an ideal world. Oxfam has pointed out that thousands of children working in the garments industry in Bangladesh demonstrated against plans by the Government, under pressure from international agencies, to lay them off. They preferred jobs to life on the streets. And although they earned little, their contribution to their poor families was vital. A blanket ban would force child workers into unregistered, unregulated sweatshops. If the West really wants to help it should work with Third World governments to guarantee the rights of children to education and health care, but it should also recognise their need for an income.
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