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Business Ethical Issue: Child Labor

   

Added on  2021-06-16

6 Pages1590 Words88 Views
BUSINESS ETHICSBusiness Ethical Issue: Child LaborStudent’s nameName of the Institute

BUSINESS ETHICSIntroductionThe most popular food and household companies are selling cosmetics, food and other everyday staples containing palm oil. The children even less than 10 years of age work under hazardous condition for these companies in Indonesia (Márquez, 2017). We all love chocolates, but do we consider the fact how much child labor is involved in their production. There is worst form of child labor prevalent in cocoa production in Africa (Fowler & Coutel, 2017). These big companies need to play a fair game. So, one of the ethical issues exist in world today is child labor. Even the developed countries have the problem of child labor. It is just the matter of thought who takes the responsibility. Is it I, you or we?In this report we are going to limit this worldwide issue to a particular country i.e. Australia. Australia has not yet defined minimum age of workers in its laws and this is an international embarrassment for the country (Sargeant, 2016). South Australia does not have stringent child laws. When developed world is signing international convention on minimum ageof workers, Australia lags behind. Australia is one of the 20 member countries that have not yet signed the Minimum Age convention of 1973. This convention suggests International Labor Organization Declaration on rights at work and fundamental principles. This convention ensures that countries should be committed to effective abolish the child labor. This convention fixes minimum working age is 16 years for the developed nations. Australia does not have uniform Laws on the issue of child labor state wise. Many Australian states have laws on child labor; however, the laws differ across the states as some states have strong laws, some have weak laws. These laws are not standardized from one state to other (Doyle, 2017). For example, in southern part of Australia, regulations help in preventing school aged children from going to work. This led them to work or get employed out of school hours. This makes them tired and unable to

BUSINESS ETHICSattend school next day. This is one of the examples. But it shows lack of legal framework aroundthis issue. It prevents children to lead happy and healthy lives. It puts them at risk. It does not let them to complete their education. The government tries to compensate this by having certain state laws which determines employers’ responsibilities regarding safety of the child. There are laws defining protection for children at workplace. There are fines for those who do not follow such practices. But there are no federal laws that ban bonded labor.One of the scandals which have captured attention in recent times is Woolies, Coles and Aldi who caught up in child labor scandal (Szörényi, 2016). These three supermarkets are sourcing sea food and prawns from Thai company. There is graphic evidence that shows that forced labor including child labor is employed at these Thai factories. Children were observes worked under these factories and under violent condition. They are forced not to leave the factories. Australian retailers bought these foods from the Thai supplier and thus in turn supporting the practice of child labor.Many enterprise or for-profit orphanages in Australia are the source of child trafficking, slavery and abuse. It is difficult to understand the difference between genuine orphanage and the scam. Many children don’t receive adequate education; they are not registered with the state. They are vulnerable to abuse, trafficking and exploitation. Many Australia companies practice this kind of issue in their supply chain. For example, for many fashion brands in Australia cotton is sourced from the countries which indulge in child labor. Children are supposed to work 70 hours per week in these source countries. The other news that has captured attention in recent past is after 5 years of investigation it is found that more than 5% of Catholic priests sexually abused children between 1950 and 2010 (Doyle, 2017).

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