Hacker News Reader

Or they can help their parents fix agriculture, develop local businesses, etc. The way I see it, those factories employing child labour are their primary tether to the global economy, which is bleeding them dry. Disconnected, they wouldn't have to compete with the rest of the world, and local economy would adjust. After all, at the level their local economy is, it's not dollars that matter, but man hours - and every country has the same amount per capita of those.

Yes and no. There does seem to be indication that ending child labor, without changing anything else, does lead to an immediate worsening of the situation for some children. But, this is in no way a justification for child exploitation and it also doesn't speak to the long term benefits of ending child labor.

If kids do not have enough food to eat, then the alternative to hard labor is death from starvation, not education.