Child Labor

So, child labor is bad, right? Your typical American seems to think so anyway. Well, while Kevin was here visiting me in Santa Barbara I took him to the filter workshop to check it out and as we walked in we saw three little boys moving cement bags in a large dusty warehouse. My grandpa asked who they were and I said I had no idea. Later he mentioned that something like that could cause a scandal for the Peace Corps and for Rotary (since the filters are supported by Rotary grants). I had never thought about it that way, in fact I had never thought about it at all. Seeing little kids working at the filter workshop didn’t faze me at all, probably because I have become so accustomed to seeing little kids working all the time. Young boys often work on buses taking ticket money, small children work in the park selling Chiclets and lots of kids work in the markets to help out their parents.

Child labor is bad. Children should not be working at a young age, especially in dangerous situations. They should be in school so they can learn how to read and write. But what if their parents don’t have enough money to send them to school or feed them and if they have them work they can make a little extra money?

Rolf, the Canadian Agua Pura volunteer that was here at the time didn’t like the situation either so he talked to the filter owner about it. The boys were 6, 9 and 12 and were the sons of one of the workers. Rolf didn’t like this so he went to the authorities to denounce the owner of the filter workshop for breaking the law by employing minors. The owner obviously wasn’t too happy about this. I have learned time and time again that going behind somebody’s back is not the way to go, you need to address the situation first, tell the person that if no change is made you will have to take more drastic action, so that they have a chance to fix the problem. Whether or not this happened with Rolf and the workshop owner I am not quite sure, but either way he probably could have used more tact.

About a week after all this happened I talked to the filter workshop owner and asked him about the kids and he told me that they didn’t work there anymore…that was easy. So, now that they don’t work there anymore, what are they doing? Are they in school, did they find other work, are they on the street? I realize more and more that nothing is simple here, nothing is black and white.