David Batstone from Right Reality recently did a post on child labor based on a trip he did to Peru. A quick excerpt:

"Our initial effort is to make a clear distinction between "child labor" and "entrepreneurial children." Political policies that seem so universal in the United States and Europe turn relative in other global communities. The condemnation of child labor is a good example. Nearly all Western human rights groups monitor it, and fair trade activists lobby to make it a standard for compliance.

The best "compacts" for corporate behavior in global markets - the SA 8000, for instance - ban the employment of children under 15 years of age. But we discovered that the primary life skills strategy for helping street kids in Lima, Peru, was to put the kids to work." 

A complex problem to be sure. A problem to which we here at Fair Trade Sports are seeking to make a positive contribution in two ways. First, by supporting and evangelizing the Fair Trade movement, which strikes at the underlying causes of child labor. And second, by giving away all our after-tax profits to children’s charities, funding experts in the field to best meet the unique needs of each global region’s at-risk children.

Batstone’s team has set up the Children’s Aid Fund to help children around the globe who are designing innovative solutions for their own futures. Learn more by contacting the CAF’s executive director, Kique Bazan.

What are your thoughts on the complexity of the child labor issue?