Failure to deal with child labour is an emotive issue in rich countries where consumers are sensitive to the track record of globalisation in driving labour costs and standards to the bottom. Disclosure of the use of child labour in sweatshops represents a major public relations disaster for multinational companies, as experienced by the global fashion giant, Gap, in October 2007.

Brick kiln labour in Pakistan © Kamila Hyat / IRIN News

There are however doubts over the effectiveness of western-inspired boycotts which often result in sudden closure of production lines and devastating loss of household incomes, contributing little to address the root causes of child labour. Likewise, attempts to certify goods as “child labour free” have encountered difficulty in establishing the necessary credibility – although large-scale manufacturing industries may not directly rely on child labour, backward linkages created through subcontracting labour-intensive segments of the product may be less compliant and very difficult to audit. For example, the chocolate industry in West Africa has so far failed to meet deadlines in a longstanding attempt to certify its product. Critics say this is due to reluctance to make the necessary investment to relieve poverty. Almost 300,000 children are believed to work on the cocoa farms. Commitment to rehabilitation and education is a feature of the long established Rugmark label for carpets, one of very few successful certification schemes.

Governments too are becoming anxious to respond to public opinion by introducing conditions relating to child labour in free trade agreements. Both the US and EU seek to include clauses imposing labour standards or requirements to ratify child rights treaties. The European Commission has been asked to investigate the feasibility of trade embargoes against countries where the worst forms of child labour remain unchecked. Many campaigners are uncomfortable with these linkages, preferring that child labour be addressed by explicit domestic laws rather than the small print of commercial agreements.

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