[the-alchemist]

This.

We would all benefit from more cause and effect analysis in our media.

- Let's say we increase prices that we pay cocoa farmers, even double the price

- Is this extra enough to send the girl to school an hour away, pay for her books, etc.? If you pay the family more, how do you know they would spend it on the girl's education? Maybe fixing the water well or building a sturdier house is more important. Or paying off debt.

- The school is an hour away, the girl might not feel safe being away from home for so long without any adults. She might prefer being with her family. So... boarding school? Are the teachers qualified? (Go read about absentee teachers in Indian schools.)

- Also, if cocoa farming becomes more profitable, it might encourage _more_ child labor as parents pull their kids from school to work "on the family farm".

- If cocoa farming is profitable enough, it might invite a protection racket. Go Google for Mexican cartels and avocados.

Ironically, here in the U.S., we kinda glorify "working on the family farm", expecting kids to help on their parents' farms. Isn't that family doing something similar?

I am in no way glorifying child labor. I think it's sad and I wish I could adopt all these children and give them the quality of life I enjoy.

But complex problems require complex solutions. Unfortunately, we--humanity as a whole--have not found a universal solution to end human suffering as a whole, even the small subset of misery like child labor.

Historically, almost every country that has "developed" into an "industrialized" nation has had a very difficult, dangerous, violent learning curve. Kids in coal mines in the U.S., 18th century Dickensian English was a hellhole...

[foobarian]

> - If cocoa farming is profitable enough, it might invite a protection racket. Go Google for Mexican cartels and avocados.

Ah yes, then also:

https://www.npr.org/2020/11/19/936567302/planet-money-the-le...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36900201

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16148110

[autoexec]

> Historically, almost every country that has "developed" into an "industrialized" nation has had a very difficult, dangerous, violent learning curve.

Historically, countries that industrialized didn't have an extensive history of examples to learn from and they had to figure it out for themselves. Every currently developing country doesn't get their own turn at being horrible to people or the environment.

The developed world should expect developing nations to learn from history and avoid the errors made in the past just as we'd expect them to take advantage of the advances in science and technology that have been reached.

[zizee]

Are you saying rich countries should force poor countries to adopt to their ethical and moral codes? Should they adopt all of them, like our stringent building codes? What about minimum wages? Vehicle safety standards?

I'm being supercilious, but hopefully you can see the problem.

[autoexec]

I'm saying that rich countries shouldn't enable or accept poor countries exploiting child slaves and polluting the planet we all share because "it's their turn now". That's flawed logic.

We certainly shouldn't force other countries to follow our morals, but we shouldn't give them our money and support or make excuses for them while they act like monsters either. We should encourage them to do better, help them when we can, and lead by example. At a minimum we should be holding our own nation's corporations accountable when they're knowingly profiting from children being trafficked and enslaved.

[zizee]

Ok, but the article this discussion is about didn't show examples of child slavery, but of child labour, with a coverup being performed by locals, and suggestions of a large corp not doing enough to verify things independently.

Rich countries should help poorer countries lift themselves out of poverty, but let's not pretend everything is clear cut and simple. How do you deal with corruption? What is an acceptable level of violations is acceptable? How do you measure the good you do vs the harm you're causing?

[bmacho]

This not.

> - Also, if cocoa farming becomes more profitable, it might encourage _more_ child labor as parents pull their kids from school to work "on the family farm".

Wtf. No? Do you pull your kids from school so they can help you at work?

[all2]

> Wtf. No? Do you pull your kids from school so they can help you at work?

If I were in a position of "family eats or family doesn't eat" I would be sorely tempted to tap my kids as extra income earners. This isn't a particularly new problem in the world. The West has only gotten stringent on child labor in the last century, and you're seeing other countries coming up that are also struggling with the issue at hand: enough money to feed the family.

We're rather privileged in the West in that we don't really struggle for necessities. Even our impoverished have clothing, shelter, and food. We don't really understand what it means to be truly impoverished. Nor do we understand the kinds of decisions a father or mother must make in order to ensure their survival and the survival of their children.

[autoexec]

Many of the child slaves in Ghana are trafficked. They're not working on the family farm to help grow food for their next family dinner, they're being forced into slavery and made to work for farms that sell their product to billion dollar multinational corporations.

The solution to ending slavery is to make laws which ban the practice and then strictly enforcing those laws. Once that's done it won't matter how profitable farming is because anyone who uses child slaves will suffer instead of profiting. Exceptions can be made for people farming their own food for their own tables which would still prevent the trafficking of children just so that Mars Incorporated and The Hershey Company can stuff their pockets with more money.

[walterlb]

The countries that have "developed" have increased pressures on less developed nations, and caused or exacerbated problemsin the areas they have exploited in order to develop.