Child Labor

On Saturday, we paid a visit to an Indonesian snack factory. Whatever I expected, I was not prepared for this:

These children work nine hours a day twisting these strings of dough into snacks and frying them. I tried my hand at it, but a girl about twelve years old got impatient with my unpracticed fingers.

These children don't go to school. In their own words, they work to help their families. They don't seem unhappy or particularly badly treated, though the open fires in the room burned our lungs and eyes. The youngest among them looked at most eight years old.

After use, the frying oil sat in these uncovered pans on the floor to cool.

These two youngsters helped flatten the dough. They moved the pieces from one table, where they were cut into strips with a butcher's knife, to the table where they were rolled into twists.

In front of the final product:

Conditions in this factory weren't awful, though it lacked ventilation and the room filled quickly with cigarette smoke and heat from burning oil. The children smiled at us pleasantly, and none of the workers acted like we were seeing a big secret. 

Many economists theorize periods of cruel industrialization are necessary steps for a modernizing economy. What do you think? Is child labor ever justified? If so, when, and why?