Child Labor and Product Boycotting

Reflection on Weekly Readings
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Reflection on Weekly Readings
In this week's readings, the theme of child labor dominates with the authors highlighting that boycotts against products that highly rely on the use of child labor in their manufacturing are one of the best strategies to manage the problem. Secondly, other readings highlight that improved economic growth in third-world countries helps in eliminating the problem of child labor since it is a strategy that has worked pretty well in developed economies worldwide. Considering the continuous increased economic growth among developing nations worldwide, world statistics on the number of child laborers decreased significantly from 246 million at the beginning of 2000 to 152 at the end of 2016 (Tupy, 2018). Scholars in the world business market and child activism attribute the crucial decrease due to the increased child-labor activism through boycotts and economic growth.
The first theme of applying boycotts in eliminating child labor can be supported by several examples which have effectively confirmed the viability of the strategy. Bachman (2003) emphasizes selective boycotts against goods manufactured using children as cheap labor and services that companies render using the same children. The efforts would help strengthen the initiative of eliminating the high child labor exploitation. Bachman considers the boycotts as taking two basic forms; negative and positive boycotts. In positive boycotts, consumers are persuaded through social labeling of products by ensuring that they only purchase products that have labels indicating that the manufacturing process of these end-products does not in any way involve child labor. On the contrary, negative boycotts provide instructions to consumers not to purchase products associated with child labor involved in their manufacturing process. In her emphasis, Bachman measures the success of either form of boycott through the behavior change by companies that manufacturers the products or renders the services in a way that the child benefits. The behavioral change of these organizations should also not harm child workers. Further success is measurable through the improved well-being of the child laborers by comparing their status before and after the boycotts.
While Bachman supports boycotts a...