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Originally posted by morning_rain

It does raise an interesting point that the western conception of childhood is one of play and innocence etc.

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I shall go ahead and disagree here. Westerners preach independence from a very very early age. They just preach a more respectable and protective form of labour with age regulations...very very inline with the culture and economics of the continent. Kids here work part-time at a failry early age...much more than APAC I am guessing.

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Originally posted by morning_rain
Would it not be better to regulate childhood labour than to rule it illegal? This is just based on the article...

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I read the article too and it seems there are some positives such as the one implied from the paragraph:

"Not all child work is harmful. Some children actually choose to work, to develop new skills and move toward adulthood. Millions of children work part-time, combining work with school. Often children's wages make the difference between destitution and survival for their families .Take away their jobs and children go hungry, become homeless or are driven to more poorly paid, more dangerous jobs."

I don't know what you mean but that's not to say you may not have a different point. So would you elaborate "regulate childhood labour" for the sake of argument...if different from what's described in the above para?