Thats entirely depended on the context and assumes some other safeguards exist. Outlawing alone can be utterly horrific, there are quite a few examples of child labor unions (as in working children) fighting such laws. Its no surprise seeing as when there are no social safety nets they are at real direct threat of starvation once they loose their jobs.

This sometimes being seen as an acceptable cost to not have to look at working children gets us into the very much evil category. Its quite gut wrenching how often such distanced simplified signaling results in horrific situations for the people on the ground, even without bad intentions.