Bolivia Lowers Legal Age of Employment to Help Poor Families

Bolivia
has lowered its
minimum age of employment from 14 to 10-years-old, giving it
the distinction of being the nation with the lowest legal age of
employment. But while the idea of tiny tots slaving away for payday
may make some queasy, it’s actually a positive step
for one of the
poorest countries in Latin America.  

And the legislators in Bolivia recognize that:

The bill’s sponsors say lowering the minimum work age from 14
simply acknowledges a reality: Many poor families in Bolivia have
no other choice than for their kids to work.

However, the bill, they say, does offer working children
safeguards.

“Child
labor already exists in Bolivia, and it’s difficult to fight
it. Rather than persecute it, we want to protect the rights and
guarantee the labor security of children,” said Sen. Adolfo
Mendoza, one of the bill’s sponsors.

Under the legislation, 10-year-olds will be able to work as long
as they are under parental supervision and also attend school. It
sets 12 as the minimum age for a child to work under contract.
Those children would also have to attend school.

Of course, not everyone views this as a positive step for the
country and the kids. Before the bill became law, three
organizations against the legislation sent
a letter to Bolivia’s president telling him not to sign the bill
and pointing out that the country has signed treaties to the
contrary. The letter argues:

If children as young as 12 are permitted to work, they will miss
out on education during the very formative years of their
development and risk being trapped in repetitive tasks, eroding
their skills and prospective employability in future. In this
process they would inadvertently enter into the vicious cycle of
poverty and illiteracy which would not be easy to dismantle. Child
labour as a double edged dagger could further deprive adults from
decent working conditions because employers will always prefer
children over adults for they do not demand minimum wages and
cannot stand up for their rights.

These organizations may mean well, but they’re missing one big
point: banning
child labor doesn’t make it
disappear. Nor does it miraculously pull families out of
poverty and give them the opportunity to send their kids to school,
as
David Boaz of the Cato Institute points out: 

If we say that the United States should abolish child labor in
very poor countries, then what will happen to these children? …
They’re not suddenly going to go to the country day school. …
They may be out selling their bodies on the street. That is not an
improvement over working in a t-shirt factory.

In fact, when India banned employing children under the age of
14 in manufacturing,
reasearchers found that child wages actually decreased and child
labor increased.

In an ideal world, children would spend everyday learning,
playing, and generally having the sort of childhood
of Kevin
Arnold in The Wonder Years. But we don’t live an ideal world,
and therefore goverments shouldn’t take away a child’s best
alternative to poverty.