Internships have become a common route into many careers, but a significant number of them provide no wages at all. I largely agree that unpaid internships should be prohibited, as they are unfair both to the interns themselves and to young people who cannot afford to accept them.
The first problem is that unpaid internships often involve genuine work without fair reward. Many interns are not simply observing professionals; they are answering phones, conducting research or producing content that the company would otherwise have to pay an employee to do. When an organisation benefits from this labour without paying for it, it is exploiting the eagerness of young people to gain a foothold in a competitive industry. A legal requirement to pay at least the minimum wage would ensure that interns are treated as the workers they effectively are.
The second, and perhaps more serious, problem is that unpaid placements restrict opportunity to those who are already privileged. A graduate whose parents can support them financially, or who lives in a major city where such placements are concentrated, can work for months without income. A capable graduate from a low-income family or a distant town cannot. Over time, this means that sectors such as media, law and politics recruit disproportionately from wealthy backgrounds, which reduces diversity and reinforces inequality.
It could be argued that a ban would lead some employers to offer fewer internships. This is a reasonable concern, and short placements of a week or two, or internships that form part of a university course, might be treated as exceptions. However, longer placements that involve productive work should be paid.
In conclusion, I believe unpaid internships exploit young workers and favour the privileged, so they should largely be outlawed, with only limited exceptions for brief or educational placements.