Fisking Darien Fenton

Smack-head Darien Fen­ton has writ­ten a post about child labour that is a trav­esty of con­tra­dic­tions, so uch so that it is deserv­ing of a fisk­ing as only a right winger can do.

A Bangladeshi boy works in a ship­build­ing fac­tory in down town. These fac­to­ries employ young boys as appren­tices with­out pay for the first few years.

Well done, enter­pris­ing lad, get­ting some hard earned skills in boat build­ing and repair. Per­haps he could come down here after his appren­tice­ship and show our over­paid buf­foons in the trade a thing or two. Not so wor­ried about the no pay, they prob­a­bly get a ship­ping con­tainer to live in and free food in return.

They work in extreme con­di­tions with­out safety tools like gloves, gog­gles, and other pro­tec­tive gear.

There is evi­dence to sug­gest that work­ers with­out safety gear are actu­ally more care­ful than work­ers decked out in all the safety gear under the sun.

In exchange, they learn the skills of the trade. But this costs them loss of health and education.

Hang on a minute. She says the learn skill of the trade in return for their free labour, how does that rec­on­cile with a loss of edu­ca­tion? Not every­one can be a uni­ver­sity lec­turer or a union­ist and then go on to be a Labour Party MP, we need trained, skilled work­ers in indus­tries like boat build­ing. I fail to see the prob­lem here.

We should remem­ber that there’s a whole other world of exploita­tion and abuse of work­ers out there.

Now hang on a minute here. There is no evi­dence to sug­gest that this young boy is being exploited, did Darien pop her head out of the air con­di­tioned limo to actu­ally ask the chap if he was being exploited or if he was unhappy. I bet she didn’t. The pong of hard work­ing poor peo­ple would have been too much for her social­ist patri­cians nose.

I was at the ILO in Geneva in 1998 when the Child Labour Con­ven­tion was passed.  The Global March against child labour trav­elled over 80,000 kms through 62 coun­tries, with a core group of marchers, res­cued from mines, sweat­shops and servi­tude.  They car­ried the mes­sage that the time has come to guar­an­tee every child their child­hood, that no child should lose their chance to learn and develop to work all day long.  The march was led into the UN by 11 year old Basudev Bhat­tarai, a for­mer domes­tic ser­vant from Nepal.

Eleven years on, I’m hor­ri­fied by this pic­ture, but thanks to Labour Start for remind­ing us that child labour is still a black spot on the face of humanity.

Oh come on, she has just con­tra­dicted her­self again buy say­ing that the boy isn’t learn­ing and devel­op­ing. He most demon­stra­bly is “learn­ing and devel­op­ing” skills in the boat-building indus­try. She calls child labour a black spot on the face of human­ity yet is was off the backs of child labour in the indus­trial rev­o­lu­tion which many in the third world are yet to expe­ri­ence that saw kids doing fine works as chimney-sweeps and pit-pony drovers and coal min­ing. Good hon­est work, an excel­lent work etthic and keep­ing them out of trou­ble and off the streets.

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