Comment by WiseMansBlood (hidden existence) on The One Within the Villainess - Chapter 5

@WiseMansBlood (hidden existence) she gave them somthing todo because otherwise they wouldn't trust her 
she gained nothing by the labour they did 
the amount of money she makes in a sec is more than what they can make in a month

@aaa blud that ain't changing the facts. She doing child labor. Also you are a fool if you think you actually need that to convince a child to trust you. An adult? Maybe. A child? Heㅤll nah. Children are super easy to trust one. Give them food and tell them they'll be your future workforce and boom they gonna trust you at some point. Especially since she was introduced by someone the children kind of knew already and trusted. But even if we say that was just to make them trust her, its still child labor and as such

@WiseMansBlood (hidden existence)

 
You're forgetting 3 things. 
1) She lives in a Mideval Era.  Where commoner children worked from sun up till sun down, from the time they could walk. 

2) All the work they're doing is substance farming for themselves, so what they farm, is what they eat.  It's not like she's making any money at all from them.  If anything two chapters ago, it was shown that she's actually losing so much money, that the village chief needs to pay out of pocket to support the kiddos. 

and 

3) It's not child labor, like you're talking about.  Sure kids are working for a living.  But all that work is purely for their own survival and all they do is going onto their own plates.  Since there are no adults outside of the village chief until this chapter. Which makes sense since it's a stigmatized race that humans go out of there way to condemn and treat more worse than black people in 1700's USA. 

So without adult supervision, outside the chief.  No support networks for children, outside what the MC can give personally when she's there (which is rarely).  And without a massive infrastructure, since it's a mideval ghost town, that was falling apart at the seems when the MC got it.  They got to fend for themselves.  Which means that they need to work to grow their own food to put on the table. 

 

@Ashanna Hensley (Ren)

well but you are also forgetting something... just because the country is old fashioned doesn't change the fact that its child labor. it doesn't matter what they are working for. Children in india are also working for their own sustenance. Same goes for children in afrika, get this they sometimes even help sustaining their sick mother, wow. And they also live in an undeveloped country with different laws and common views.

Just cus its allowed and socially accepted doesn't make it any less child labor. Slavery was also slavery even when it was allowed and socially accepted by society.

The fact that she isn't making money from them is also not really something that matters. These children take care of her property, develop her land and in exchange they get food. Thats labor, if she profits from it or not does not matter.

Also the demonfolk is currently uknown by the public. Like they don't know that they exist. The reason why they are in a bad state is because they need to hide themself, which they need to do cus people might see them as devils. The story made a bad explanation bout it but no they are technically not a stigmatized race, which is also the reason why MC is able to introduce them so easily to the human kingdom.

Also they quite literally do not put their own food on the table. She gives them food in exchange for plowing the fields. The entire point about no adults being around is a nonsensical argument as well since she brought the children there herself. Like blud "ohh so I threw these 11 kids from poor families on an abandoned island where no adults are around, so now they need to make some iphones for me or starve to death. But its not child labor since they make Iphones to sustain themself" which is an exagerated and far more unethical example but its the same argument. They work to create a product (Creating crops on a field, taking care of her land), in exchange for that they then get food and a place to live.

Would it be more unethical to have these children live like they did before? Yes. Does that justify child laber when she could literally feed these kids out of her own pocket? Not really. She makes children work for her. Children who have no other choice then to work for her because everything else is most likely death or at best starvation. That she is nice to them and doesn't gain profit (aside from increasing her political reputation among demons and getting her abandoned village repopulated) does not change that

@Ashanna Hensley (Ren) look man I am not saying she is evil. But just cus something seems like the right thing, doesn't mean its actually not just a thing that is in general perceived as bad. Like I am sure she does not have a lot of evil intentions. But she still employs children, thats a fact, no matter how much its justifiable, its still employing children.

@WiseMansBlood (hidden existence) So? You're putting far too much stock into trying to overlap your reality into the author's fiction. Kinda sad.

@Lulwat85 why my reality? So like first of all my initial comment was mostly a joke... I later just explained stuff, since people seemed to get offended by the fact that I would dare insinuate that the MC is doing something unethical. 2nd of all it is kinda a more or less commonly accepted that child labor is unethical. So I was just applying todays common ethics, to parodise her showing "good will" by creating child labor. Idk why that seems to be hard to get. 4 People seemed to have gotten the joke.

@WiseMansBlood (hidden existence) Do you think child labour was rare in 10th century or even 19th century, the world here is equivalent to 10th century of our world so it's not so rare for children's to do work when they think if the don't work they wouldn't get the food.