Who's to Blame

"Think about the different causal stories that could be told about your issue. Which one do you think is correct? Do people generally see it the way you do? Why or why not?"

Let's play the "blame game"... I find it interesting that people always look for a scape goat. Take Deborah Stone's example of drunk drivers for instance, she talks about the grassroots organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving and its action of pressuring "legislatures to pass laws making hosts and servers liable for damages caused by drunk drivers" as well as lobbying "to ban 'happy hours' in bars" (Stone 206). How is it a group of concerned women have moved past moral beliefs to establish a specific person or group of people responsible? I, personally, am a bit skeptical of blaming specific (groups of) people as well as events occurring out of fate which cannot be controlled. Now don't get me wrong, I do believe that there are events out there in which specific people are at fault and those which are neither predictable nor controllable; I just tend to see problems as resulting from complex systems. Many issues arise as consequences of the actions of multiple people or organizations and consist of many components.

In the case of child labor, which accounts for approximately 50% of modern slavery cases, there is more than one person to take into consideration when assessing causation; in fact, the main people and groups to focus on are the child's parents, the "employer", the government and enforcement officials (i.e. police officers, etc.), and in many cases, the traffickers and recruiters. Likewise, other contributing factors include poverty, job opportunity, education, and living conditions.

Let us first examine the factors aside from individuals involved as these factors tie into the roles of these individuals. First, poverty plays a huge part in a child's risk of being forced into labor and bondage slavery. Lack of money brings about poor living conditions in which families struggle to make ends meet, simply providing enough to survive. Subjected to such living conditions, children are often removed from school (if already attending) to help support the family. With very few job opportunities available and children being too young to legally work (in most countries), parents often find the promise of a stranger to provide their child with a better life as a great opportunity.

This is where traffickers, recruiters, and "employers" come in. As most most cases of child labor are also human trafficking cases, recruiters often come to the child's parents offering the child with things such as education, a salary for simple domestic help, meals, a home, and safety. Parents, unaware of the recruiter's intentions, happily send off their children with what appears to be a "god-like" stranger. Then, the child is passed on to the traffickers whose sole purpose is to transport the child either within the same country, across borders, or even transcontinental to the child's "employer", who typically forces the child to work long hours with no pay, for the reason that the salary is going to the parents (it's NOT) or the child is also paying off meals and housing, provides no education, and abuse the child regularly. Likewise, child labor can occur in the same scenario without the recruiters and traffickers; in these cases, the "employer" seeks out the child on his or her own. As for government and enforcement, there are, most often, laws in place which establish a minimum age for employment and require that employers provide safe working conditions, but governments often do not conduct regular and random inspections of employers and their employees, leaving many cases of child labor unnoticed. Often, officers who encounter cases of child labor are coerced by the "employers" into overlooking the situation through bribery in which the officers are offered money and even sex with child laborers. How sick is this-- child labor going unnoticed by government and officers being bribed with money and statutory rape?!

This appalling issue is not due to one specific cause, such as mechanical, intentional, or inadvertent cause, but rather, a complex system of various causes. Without a doubt, I believe that people share the same opinion as I do. Of course, there are those out there who believe that only one is truly the cause, but many people agree that it is an issue of many causes. Being part of a grassroots movement to end global slavery (the Not For Sale campaign), I have personally met many people who agree that slavery of all forms (sex slavery, child labor, human trafficking, etc.) result from many factors which is why we are working together to address all aspects of this monumental issue simultaneously. NO ONE CAUSE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE OTHERS.