“There is no justification – poverty included – for children to work in this sector… It is literally back-breaking work.” -International Labour Organization
A deadly grind, written by Geoffrey York, indicates the dangerous labour environment that South African children are in. Even though the danger of getting metal contamination, respiratory disease, and sexual violence, over 800,000 children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo work at mines to support their families’ living. They work all day long, but the money they get from companies is less than 10 dollars per day. Is this the right thing to do?
Yes, businesses’ the first and the most important goal is making the most profit out of limited resources. And yes, businesses have to cut their budget as much as possible, so they can make more money out of it. However, businesses have to value their suppliers and employees to businesses to be successful, according to the stakeholder theory speech of R. Edward Freeman. Agreeing to the stakeholder theory, I, as a business student, personally think business is not just about making money to fulfill one’s greed to earn more money; companies have to be ethical, honest, and responsible. Those companies’ unethical and irresponsible attitude shown by exploiting child labour will rouse customers’ antipathy which will lead to the loss of their brand-names’ value. Cutting out the budget by unfairly hiring children might seems efficient for now, but will it still be efficient after a couple years?