Unicef is an organization that does everything they can to protect children from all kinds of harm, help solve gender inequality issues, and provide an education for children who otherwise would never touch a book, learn to read, or learn to write. They are an amazing organization and have done a lot of good in our world.
(www.guardian.co.uk)
One of the projects that Unicef supported was ending the use of child labor in garment factories in Bangladesh. It's 'child labor'. It's bad right? Of course ending these practices would be a good thing, right? Unicef thought so too, until they learned of the consequences of pushing children out of relatively safe work environments and into a workforce much less friendly.
Garment factory workers are relatively well paid and work reasonable hours which leaves both time and money for children to put themselves through school. Without factory jobs, many children are forced to work as maids who have no time off for attending classes, and who make about half as much as factory workers. Or worse, they work 'off the grid' in unsafe, under paid, sweat shops.
So what did we learn? Imposing morals and practices followed in the US may not work for all countries. Unicef backed this movement to get children out of factories because we would never do that here in the US, but didn't take the time to think about how pushing them out of those jobs would simply push them into others. Their families still need to pay rent, they still need food, and they still need money to fund their own educations. Pushing children out of factory jobs actually ended up doing more harm than good.
See an awesome video on the topic
here
