Condemning the Innocent
According to the International Labor Organization 215 million children (5-14) are involved in child labor. That’s almost 1 in three children having to work causing them to lose time that could be spent in school experiencing their childhood and most importantly being in a safe environment. Today Child labor has become a growing concern throughout the global community and should be put to a stop because of it is abusive, destructive, and promotes a regressive society for children everywhere. We cannot afford for our youth to continue in this horrendous cycle because it not only is detrimental for our present but for our future.
Child labor is abusive to these children as it is grueling and dangerous for these mistreated workers. Children are being abused across the globe as they are forced to work to provide for their basic needs. Child labor is widespread especially in third world countries such as Afghanistan where “By Afghan government estimates, as many as a third of the nation's children -- more than 4 million -- take part in some sort of work, from picking fruit to mining coal.”(Nissenbaum, Dion, the Wall Street journal) Children as young as 10 work in illegal mines, often for 12 hours a day just to provide for their basic needs. These children are being forced to work in extremely hazardous conditions where they are forced to do strenuous work for an extremely long period of time preventing them from exploring and fulfilling other interest such as education and experiencing childhood. Another example of this would be in Mali, Africa were a terrifying report from the Human Rights Watch and NBC News reports tha...
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...obalization's Children Are Being Abandoned." Global Viewpoint. 05 Feb. 2014: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 17 Feb. 2014.
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Nissenbaum, Dion. "Teenager Films Afghan Child Labor." Wall Street Journal. 14 Jul. 2012: A.10. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 19 Feb. 2014.
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The novel Between Shades of Grey by Ruta Sepetys does an excellent job illustrating the troubling issue of child labor. The extent of child labor in a country is directly linked by the nature and extent of poverty within it. Child labor deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity. It is detrimental to physical and mental development. Today, there are an estimated 246 million child laborers around the globe. This irritating social issue is not only violates a nation’s minimum age laws , it also involves intolerable abuse, such as child slavery, child trafficking, debt bondage, forced labor, and illicit activities. In Between Shades of Grey , Lina and her ten year old brother are unrightfully charged 25 years of labor at a work camp in Siberia. It prevented the children from going to school and used them to undermine labor standards. In the harsh winter and even worse living conditions, they watched their mother as she starved to death.
Shah, Anup. "Child Labor." - Global Issues. Anup Shah, 17 July 2005. Web. 26 Nov. 2013. .
Education | Global March Against Child Labour. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Dec. 2017. (-- removed HTML --) .
History.com Staff. "Child Labor." History.com. A&E Television Networks, 01 Jan. 2009. Web. 17 Apr. 2016.
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.
"Sex Trafficking Statistics & Source Documentation." The Covering House RSS. N.p., 2014. Web. 23 Mar. 2014.
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.
Child Labour In the past few years, a great deal of attention has been drawn to the global problem of child labour. Virtually everyone is guilty of participating in this abusive practice through the purchase of goods made in across the globe, usually in poor, developing nations. This issue has been around for a great length of time but has come to the forefront recently because of reports that link well known American companies like Wal-Mart and Nike to the exploitation of children. Prior to this media attention, many Americans and other people in developed nation were blind to the reality of the oppressive conditions that are reality to many.
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.
Child Labor is not an isolated problem. The phenomenon of child labor is an effect of economic discrimination. In different parts of the world, at different stages of histories, laboring of child has been a part of economic life. More than 200 million children worldwide, some are as young as 4 and 5 years old, are slaves to the production line. These unfortunate children manufacture shoes, matches, clothing, rugs and countless other products that are flooding the American market and driving hard-working Americans out of jobs. These children worked long hours, were frequently beaten, and were paid a pittance. In 1979, a study shows more than 50 million children below the age of 16 were considered child labor (United Nation labors agency data). In 1998, according to the Campaign for Labor rights that is a NGO and United Nation Labor Agency, 250 million children around the world are working in farms, factories, and household. Some human rights experts indicate that there are as many as 400 million children under the age of 15 are performing forced labor either part or full-time under unsafe work environment. Based upon the needs of the situation, there are specific areas of the world where the practice of child labor is taking place. According to the journal written by Basu, Ashagrie gat...
So I believe that the issue of child labour is not simple. As Unicef’s 1997 State of the World’s Children Report argued, children’s work needs to be seen as having two extremes. On one hand, there is the destructive or exploitative work and, on the other hand, there is beneficial work - promoting or enhancing children’s development without interfering with their schooling, recreation and rest. ‘And between these two poles are vast areas of work that need not negatively affect a child’s development.’ My firm belief is that there is a difference between child labour and child work and that in both cases the issue is whether or not the child is deliberately being exploited.
In document UN/ CRC/ 531, analyzed through UNICEF, an estimated 25% of the world’s children (developing world) are in the web of child labor. To add to this, nearly 70% of all girl/female laborers go unregistered, often performing acts of prostitution and strenuous domestic housework. This form of unregistered work is dangerous to young girls because the employers often abuse their employees sexually and physically, as well as psychologically scarring them for years. This alarming fact can be attributed to the inequality of education given to young girls.
Children working might not seem like a bad ordeal; however, kids doing labor might paint a different thought in mind. Child labor is a form of human trafficking, which is present all around the world, but many people in different countries do not see it as a problem. School and the freedom to be a kid is given up because of human trafficking. Child labor is something that needs to stop all around the world. People do not see the damage of human trafficking like child labor and the affect it has on children on a mental and physical level.
Child Labor has been around for a long time. Child Labor is the use of children in industry of business, especially when illegal or considered inhumane. Child Labor harms children and/or keeps them from school and from their childhood. Multiple children that are over the age of eight already have jobs. Children are already treated as adults by the age of thirteen and some already have children of their own. Child Labor is bad for society and younger children because children are losing their childhood and aren’t getting an education like other children are. It’s difficult to know how many children under the age of fifteen. Most kids that are involved in child labor are forced to do it and if they refuse they are beaten and sometimes hung because they will refuse to work. It is very dangerous and unsuitable for kids to work. Kids can be easily stressed if they are beaten. Parents sell their kids to horrible people and make them do awful things.