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Stepping into a makeshift convenience store in Hanoi peddling toiletries and cleaning products, I immediately felt uncomfortable. In a shop smaller than a two-car garage with several rows of tall shelving, a dozen teenagers milled around as if waiting for a task. Numerous security cameras captured the room from different angles and an older woman monitored the video feed on multiple screens. Three girls in the toothpaste and cosmetics aisle told me they were employed at the shop; they were fifteen and had come from the Thai Binh province in the north of Vietnam. One girl said she left school at age eleven to start working. They all lived together in an apartment rented to them by the shop's owner.
But they were not in school.
I had so many more questions. Did they ever go to school? Did the employer treat them well? What career did they aspire to? Before I could ask, my interpreter signaled that it was time to leave; the woman at the monitors had taken notice of our conversation and was glowering our way.
I met these girls on a trip to Vietnam in December 2015. I went to conduct research for Sports Philosophy, a new company based in London that seeks to simultaneously produce sportswear and fight child labor. As the company's first impact consultant, my goal was to meet child workers and learn from their experiences. After years of working on various anti-modern slavery initiatives, the underlying question for my research deeply perplexed me: if children must work in some parts of the world, is there an ethical way to employ them?
Child Labor: Global Definition and Scope
According to International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates, around 168 million children around the world are engaged in child labor, more than half the population of the United States. The forms of child labor outlawed by international treaties fall into three categories:
1. Labor that is performed by a child who is under the minimum age specified for that kind of work by national legislation;
2. Hazardous work or labor that jeopardizes the physical, mental or moral well-being of a child; and
3. The unconditional worst forms ofchild labor, which are internationally defined as slavery, trafficking, debt bondage and other forms...