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A Closer Look at Child Labor: Supply Chain Shame. Who's to Blame?
168 million.
168 million children worldwide, between ages 5–17, are subjected to, forced, and/or exploited for their labor according to the statistics of (ILO) International Labour Organization.
168 million… That’s more than half the population of the United States.
Of this 168 million, 85 million are conducting their work in hazardous conditions (theowp.org).
The reasoning behind resorting to the use of child labor varies; war, poverty, exploitation for profitability, slavery, industrial revolution, lack of resources and the list goes on from there. One thing remains the same no matter the causation:
Exploitation of child labor is unlawful, unruly and unacceptable.
Business’ worldwide, including several elite brands, have been caught in the crossfires of past year’s media exposure due to the existence of child labor in their supply chains. The typical responses follows the incident: ‘We had no idea. Our company is truly horrified by this discovery. We are working towards a solution. This type of working conditions doesn’t at all reflect the values of our corporation.’
This kind of neglectful ownership of responsibility perpetuates the idea that big business has little to no control and/or no knowledge of the calamities that can be taking place in their supply chains.
In reality, there is 168 million reasons supply chains, worldwide, need to start taking notice, but moreover, action.
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