Child labor is but one of many issues. My point is that there is a progression to modernizing a country, and that certain evils need to be tolerated while progress is being made. Do I agree with child labor? No. But I do believe that, in certain contexts, it is unavoidable and needs to be accepted temporarily, for the alternatives are certainly worse (e.g. condemning a large segment of the population to perpetual poverty).
Expecting a 3rd-world country to act like a 1st-world one, when it clearly isn't, does not work. In the same way that the US often forces American-style democracy upon other countries without going through the requisite social changes beforehand, so do Western nations force first-world labor standards on countries that are simply not ready.
What we, as modernized nations, should be doing is not unfairly punishing these countries, but rather establishing a roadmap to eliminate these evils through economic development. This may take years and decades, but at least in my birth nation child labor and sweatshops are all but eliminated, with the help of the US government no less. To try and play it black and white is foolish and solves nothing.
Expecting a 3rd-world country to act like a 1st-world one, when it clearly isn't, does not work. In the same way that the US often forces American-style democracy upon other countries without going through the requisite social changes beforehand, so do Western nations force first-world labor standards on countries that are simply not ready.
What we, as modernized nations, should be doing is not unfairly punishing these countries, but rather establishing a roadmap to eliminate these evils through economic development. This may take years and decades, but at least in my birth nation child labor and sweatshops are all but eliminated, with the help of the US government no less. To try and play it black and white is foolish and solves nothing.