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Poverty and the effects on children
Essay on child labour
Poverty and child labour essay
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Child labor refers to work that is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children; interferes with their schooling by depriving them of the opportunity to attend school; obliging them to leave school prematurely or by requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work (International Labor Organization). Child labor has been a big problem ever since the Victorian Era. Many counties worldwide have used and still to this day use child labor. Though there are many laws that have been implemented against using children to work, many countries tend to ignore them. In my paper I will be discussing countries where child labor is present, push to stop child labor, companies that use child labor, the effects on children, and the reasons for child labor.
Countries where child labor is present
Child labor is seen across all over the world and one of the main causes of child labor is poverty. Parents would often send their children off to work at a young age so they can get much needed income to survive. Child labor is mostly practiced in poor countries such as India, China, Japan, Pakistan, Ethiopia, South Africa, North Korea, etc. In the topic of poverty the two countries I will be talking about are India and China.
With a population of over 1.2 billion India is sadly at the top of the chain with the largest number of child laborers in the world. India has a poverty rate of twenty five percent with fifty percent of the population being under the age of twenty five years old (Graham). In India agriculture is the norm for working. The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that seventy percent of child labor in India is in agriculture or related acti...
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...aring stories from my parents makes it evident that child labor is widespread and still going on illegally today.
Push to stop child labor
The late 1800’s and early 1900’s were difficult times for children in the work force. Underpaid children worked long hours in harsh conditions such as high temperatures, exposure to chemicals, and with cuts and bruises. In concern for their well being the National Child Labor Committee was formed. This organization fought to expose and change the hard conditions children were forced to face. Numerous labor movements and reforms began to fight against child labor since child labor began to come into view for many (Fried).
Proposal recommendations were made to set minimum wage and restrictions on the earliest age children could work. A gradual, but steady change in child labor helped children gain fair treatment in the workforce.
Instead of playing with dolls and ribbons, eight year olds of the early twentieth century were working in factories making them. At this time there was no regulation or policies dictating when or where a young girl could work. In 1905, Florence Kelley delivered a speech advocating for the helpless children being sent to work by their parents. She emphasizes the need for change in the working environment and the underlying need for women sufferage. Kelley presents her argument with an appeal to the emotions, a call to action, and the use of examples in order to encourage the voter to put an end to child labor.
Shah, Anup. "Child Labor." - Global Issues. Anup Shah, 17 July 2005. Web. 26 Nov. 2013. .
The fight against labor received a good response from federal politicians. In the midst of this period children at a very young age were working in factories to support family. Children, under the age of fourteen, have been working eight hours a day for more than six days a week. Boys working in coal mines were crawling into newly blasted areas as well as other dangerous circumstances. Jane Addams helped bring up the facts that people were stuck in the admiration of the achievements of the industries they forgot about the children themselves (doc. C). With her influence, as well as others, the Child Labor Act was passed. There was not much impact because some industries continued to have young children working in their factories. In 1916 the Keating-Owen act was passed forbidding interstate shipment from factories employing children under the age of fourteen or children between fourteen and sixteen who work more than eight hours a day, overnight or more than six days a week. In 1918, in the Hammer vs. Dagenhart case Roland Dagenhart argued the Keating-Owen act was not a regulation of commerce (doc. G). He believed according to the tenth amendment the state should make the rules for child labor. He felt protected by the Fifth Amendment giving them the right to allow his children to work. The Supre...
Throughout time children have worked myriad hours in hazardous workplaces in order to make a few cents to a few dollars. This is known as child labor, where children are risking their lives daily for money. Today child labor continues to exist all over the world and even in the United States where children pick fruits and vegetables in difficult conditions. According to the article, “What is Child Labor”; it states that roughly 215 million children around the world are working between the ages of 5 and 17 in harmful workplaces. Child labor continues to exist because many families live in poverty and with more working hands there is an increase in income. Other families take their children to work in the fields because they have no access to childcare and extra money is beneficial to buy basic needs. Although there are laws and regulations that protect children from child labor, stronger enforcement is required because child labor not only exploits children but also has detrimental effects on a child’s health, education, and the people of the nation.
What is Child Labor?Child Labor is work that harms children or keeps them from attending school. Around the world and in the U.S., growing gaps between rich and poor in recent decades have forced millions of young children out of school and into work. It is estimated that 215 million children between the ages of 5 and 17 are currently working under conditions that are considered illegal, hazardous, or extremely exploitative.1 Underage children work many different types of jobs that included commercial agriculture, fishing, manufacturing, mining, and domestic services. Some children were involved in illicit activities that included drug trade, prostitution, and other traumatic occupations that included serving as soldiers. Child Labor involved threatening children’s physical, mental, or emotional well- being. It involved intolerable abuse, such as slavery, child trafficking, debt bondage, forced labor or illicit activities and prevented children from going to school.
Factories were utilizing children to do the hard work. They employed children as young as five or six to work as many as twenty hours a day. According to Document C, children worked in factories to build up muscles and having good intellect in working rather than getting an education. They became a different person rather than conventional children. There were additionally health issues due to child labor: rapid skeletal growth, greater risk of hearing loss, higher chemical absorption rates, and developing ability to assess risks. Progressive Era reformers believed that child labor was detrimental to children and to society. They believed that children should be protected from harmful environments, so they would become healthy and productive adults. In 1912, Congress created the Children’s Bureau to benefit children. The Keating-Owen Act was passed in 1916 to freed children from child labor only in industries that engaged in interstate commerce. However, it was declared unconstitutional sinc...
A survey done every four years says that there has been less child labor in countries such as India and Morocco than in the United States (Barta and others). Some companies overseas have strict policies against child labor; for example, a toy factory in China will not accept children for work because they feel children should not be forced to do hard labor for any amount of money. On the opposing side, in some places child labor is a huge problem such as Africa and parts of Asia. For example, in Bangladesh several under 18 workers were found working in Rana Plaza and a 15 year old worker died in a factory accident in May, according to Kate O’Keeffe of the Wall Street Journal. O’ Keeffe also writes, “There is concern that child labor will go for the worse rather than for better, especially if Western economies rebound stronger.”
Think about the cotton in your shirt, the sugar in your coffee, and the shoes on your feet, all of which could be products of child labor. Child labor is a practice that deprives children of their childhood, their potential, and their dignity and includes over 200 million children worldwide who are involved in the production of goods for companies and industries willing to exploit these kids for profit. Although most countries have laws prohibiting child labor, a lack of funding and manpower means that these laws are rarely enforced on a large scale. However, even for a first-world country like the United States, that has a large number of state and federal law enforcement officers, child labor is still a problem because priority is given to crimes that are more violent or heinous. Child labor must be made a priority issue because it is a global plague whose victims are physically and psychologically scarred, lack a proper education, are impoverished, and whose children are doomed to the same fate if nothing changes.
According to the article “A History of Child Labor” reviewed by Milton Fried, a child could work as long as six days a week for up to 18 hours a day, and only make a dollar a week. Child labor was nothing but cheap labor. The big companies loved cheap labor because then they could make an item for not very much money, and make a huge profit margin. Fried continues to state how cheap the labor was, “One glass factory in Massachusetts was fenced with barbed wire ‘to keep the young imps inside.’ These were boys under 12 who carried loads of hot glass all night for a wage of 40 cents to $1.10 per night.” Unlike, children today who are in bed sleeping by 8 pm each night, these children had to stay up all night working to make just enough income for their families. Sadly, the children had no choice but to work for very little pay. Their mothers and fathers made so little money in the factory system that they couldn’t afford to let their children enjoy their childhood: “Other working children were indentured—their parents sold their labor to the mill owner for a period of years. Others lived with their families and worked for wages as adults did, for long hours and under hard conditions” (Cleland). The child had no other choice, but to work for these big
In the beginning in the late 1700 and early 1800 hundreds when the Industrial Revolution when many families had to find someone to work or they wouldn 't survive in this decade this started child labor you might be asking yourself what is child labor, child labor is work that harms children or keep them from attending school or trying to get an education to better themselves. industrial labor organization made 215 million children between the ages of 5 and 17 had to work under the condition that are considered legal hazards or extremely exploitative in the environment that they worked in. underage children had to work also because usually their families were extremely poor and didn 't have enough money to support their selves for their children by them doing this there are many things that involved child labor when it came to the mistreating them. Such as them getting
Before we attempt to understand child labor in the present, we must understand the earlier stages of child labor, as well as what it entailed on a day to day basis. In “Child Labor and Sweatshops” edited by Mary E. Williams, it says, “When he was four years old, Iqbal Masih was sold into bonded servitude by his parents, a common practice of poor Pakistani families hoping to pay off debts owed to landlords and local merchants. For the next six years, Masih was forced to work in a carpet factory...for up to sixteen hours a day, six days a week” (7). You can see that even at the ripe age of four years old, kids were put into labor by their own parents. In some parts of the world, kids woke up early to help tend to the agricultural aspect of
“Child Labor in U.S. History.” Child Labor Public Education Project. 2011. Web. 2. April. 2014
Child Labour is closely linked to poverty. India and Pakistan being a thickly populated country. A large section of people being compelled to live below poverty line. A large numbers of children in India and pakistan are engaged as laborers to earn some money for their family’s
The next time when you are out on your shopping trip, chances you may have support a business that exploits children. It is very disturbing and heartbreaking to learn many children are chained to looms for 12 hours a day because families need to have their child bringing home a small amount of moneys. Child labor has always been a difficult subject to address, the topic have become much more complicated and prolific.
Even though child labor was at its peak during the Industrial Revolution, it still reigns as a major contributor in modern-day slavery. The underlying reasons for child labor have remained the same in the past 100 years. They range from the issues of poverty to the limited prohibitions on child labor. Despite the laws and standards put out to eliminate it, it continues to persist. Child labor harms a child’s chance in pursuing an education, violates the nation’s minimum age laws, and threatens their physical, mental, and emotional well-being.