Save the children of poverty

This is the time when people to return home for Spring Festival family reunions. But despite being busy preparing for that all-important annual event, we should not forget the many challenges facing children in our society.

The shocking news about several dozen children, aged between 9 and 16 years, from poor families in Liangshan, Sichuan province, having "volunteered" to work as cheap laborers has once again raised the problem of child labor.

It was heart wrenching to hear a young girl plead: "I don't want to go home, I can eat meat and rice here (in the factory). I don't want to go back to eating potatoes and corn every day." This girl's plea came after she was rescued from a factory in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, where she had been illegally employed as a child laborer. Further reports this weekend said another 35 teenagers questioned why they were forced back home by local police, rather than allowed to improve their lives through working.

These children's startling statements have sparked a heated public debate with many people questioning the government's decision to send the children back home in Liangshan. Some support the company for employing the children, even though it had violated labor laws, while a few go so far as to advocate the legalization of child labor.

Many of the children rescued in Liangshan - whose average age is 12 years - were separated from their families and forced to work 12 or more hours a day.

"Child labor" is generally understood as work that deprives children of their childhood, potential and dignity while endangering their physical and mental development. In ratifying three principal international conventions - the UN Convention on Rights of the Child, and the International Labor Organization's Minimum Age Convention and Worst Forms of Child Labor - China has shown that it is committed to eradicating child labor. To achieve that, it has established a framework of labor laws and regulations, fixing the minimum working age at 16.

The causes and consequences of child labor are often complex. When one considers the bleak prospects that an impoverished child in a place like Liangshan faces, we may forgive parents who allow their children to forgo mediocre education in favor of employment. But does that mean we should shut our eyes to the problem of child labor, or even go to the extreme of legalizing it?

The answer is "no". Neuroscience and child development studies have shown that a person's capacity for decision-making, logical reasoning, impulse control and emotional processing keeps developing throughout his/her childhood. This means children only have a limited window of opportunity to develop their potential to the maximum. This will not take place if they are in work. Furthermore, they are too young to give informed consent, and need to be protected from making choices that will have a negative impact on the rest of their life.