Child Labor

Childhood is a vital and powerful experience in each individual’s lifetime. It is the most important and impressionable period of learning. Throughout all of the highs and the lows, childhood is remembered forever. Although children have many rights, in some developing countries these rights are not always protected. Older, manipulative adults are taking advantage of children to make a profit for themselves. This is known as child labour, and it happens much more than many people realize. Child labour is corrupt and there is no place for it in our modern world today.

Child labour happens in many countries. There are many reasons why children are being exploited. First of all, nothing much seems to be happening to prevent it. Child labour must be eliminated as quickly as possible, before many more children get trapped, like the millions who already have in the past. Secondly, many children are too young to realize that what is happening to them is wrong and illegal. Children under the legal age to work in these developing countries, have more important things they should be involved with than labour.

Each child deserves a good education, as well as the opportunity to enjoy life, learn new things, and most importantly have fun. Hard labour at an early age can really affect a person’s outcome in the future. This terrible scam does not give children a fair chance in life; the chance for them to achieve their full potential. Child labour involves children working at a very young age. The majority of children are between the ages of five to fourteen years. Children at this age in many developing countries work hard each and everyday with very low pay.

Millions of youth are forced to work without any real choice whatsoever. The work absorbs so much of their time that school attendance is impossible. School is a very important period in life. School is where humans learn almost all the information they need to know and to use in the future. Education is a must and children should attend school; they should not be forced to work. One out of every four children in developing countries work. This is a sad statistic. Millions of children work and none of them should have to. The children get paid so very little.

Some children at this age, do not know how little they are getting paid. It’s not okay that the children are working under these conditions and it is not okay that they are getting underpaid. On average, children will earn less then half the pay of a wage-earning adult with seven years of education. This is happening because of many reasons. Children are more malleable; they will do what they are told without asking any questions. They are much more powerless. They are also more unlikely to organize against oppression and they can be physically abused without striking back.

Some customs in developing countries are much different then in Canada. For instance, in some developing countries, some people think that low-caste children should work rather than go to school. They believe this is their only option and that they don’t need an education. In these countries, children are forced to mature much too quickly and they are not allowed to be ‘a kid’ for very long. Some children are forced to work to support their family. The parents of these youths are mostly not employed and can’t find work or are very poorly paid. The child’s parents look upon them to bring in some money for the family.

The roles of parent and child have been reversed. It should not be allowed. The adults have more experience, more time, usually a better education, and a lot more knowledge. The children should definitely not have to suffer and to be forced to work. Employers get away with paying children a whole lot less. It is mainly because there is no one to stop this from happening. Children become relied on and it is just not fair. Many countries have different laws for a minimum working age. In some countries there are no minimum age for working; the average is fifteen years old.

In some countries, the age is between sixteen and eighteen. Any age below fifteen is much too young to be given that much responsibility. The work that is demanded of children is long, and performed in dangerous conditions. This is unacceptable, and would not come close to today’s standards in Canada. Children are forced to work long days with little or no food, no breaks, and they sometimes have to work up to six days a week. This is more than the average Canadian has to work, and these employees are only five to twelve years of age.

The majority of the employers take no account of the children’s legal rights. They are deprived of schooling, play, and social activity. They are also denied the emotional support of friends and family. The children are also vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse. These conditions would be very hard to accept and live with for the average adult, much less a child as young as five. Children in these countries are taught at an early age to accept the conditions of their jobs, and not to challenge them. Most parents of these children are surprisingly not against this.

In fact, in some developing countries, the parents of a less wealthy family will often sign over their off-spring to factory owners, or their agents for small loans. The culture is in fact, a lot different in these countries then most cultures in North America, but this should not take place under any conditions. Parents are forced to sell their own children. Most people would think that this is unheard of, but it occurs everyday. This is wrong and should not take place. Children belong to their parents and nothing should have to come between them.

The children don’t have a choice; they are powerless and they usually don’t even know what is going on. Some factory owners have kept the children in captivity, tortured them and forced them to work for twenty hours straight without a break. In some jobs, where a child is forced to do hard labour work, life expectancy has been reduced to twenty-five years or younger. This is almost like murder, and if not murder, certainly an extreme case of child abuse. Child labour is not allowing these children to live a full life. This slavery has to be stopped before it claims the lives of others.

Nobody in this world, especially children, are capable of working so hard for so many hours. Recently, many people from the US and Canada have brought this terrible situation to the attention of others. Petitions are now being signed to try to stop what is going on in these poor, developing countries. Craig Kielburger, a young boy from Toronto, is making a name for himself, as child labour activist. At age thirteen, Craig went to Asia for seven weeks, and found out the truth about child labour. He has informed many people about child slavery, and now he has an organization under way, throughout North America.

Everybody in this world can really make a big impact on this issue. Since Craig told the world about child labour, thousands of people have pitched in to help solve the problem. UNICEF has done a lot in the last couple years to stop child labour. Slavery was thought to be ended hundreds of years ago, but yet little does the world know, it still takes place today. Abusing power has to be stopped. Taking advantage of innocent little boys and girls, is not right. All children should receive an education so that they can live a better life when they grow up, and feel good about themselves as people.

There are a few more key steps that will have to take place to fix this disastrous situation. First, the immediate elimination of hazardous and exploitative child labour is necessary. This means governments must take strong action against anything that hampers the child’s physical, social, cognitive, emotional, or moral development. They must also provide free and compulsory education. Birth registration of all children is a must. Registration is essential to ensure the child’s rights, such as access to education, health care and other services, as well as, to provide employers and labour inspectors with evidence of every child’s age.

If these important steps are followed, child labour will go down, and quickly. Child labour is cruel and in appropriate. It infringes on children’s rights, and it is just simply not fair. Child labour has been happening for a long time, but the majority of people tend to ignore it and shrug it off. Actions are now being taken to stop child labour. These deeds will slow down, and hopefully end child labour for good. The world will be a richer, happier place for all if child labour is stopped.

The reaction of a typical citizen of a western state to child labor is generally one of disgust. They dream up images of a shoe factory in South Eastern Asia with hundreds of children stooped over sewing machines slaving their youth away. Instead of going to school or playing these children are locked in dangerous workshops, paid barely enough to survive. The truth of the matter is quite different. The average westerner does not realize that most often child laborers are working alongside their parents on small, family owned pieces of land.

They are not tortured by a mean overseer, but rather surrounded by family and friends. My intent is not to paint a glowing picture or to diminish the fact that children would be better off in schools, but we must be realistic. Generally life for the child laborer is not as bad as many imagine and frequently their hard work is the difference from their family thriving and their family starving. Not only that, but when they work in the export-manufacturing sector of the economy their labor can fuel future growth of the economy, preventing their children or grandchildren from having to work in factories.

This is not to say that we should do nothing to help child laborers, but rather that we should focus our aid in areas other than merely restricting the importation of items produced by them. We need to turn to more creative devices that will focus on improving the education and opportunity for education rather trying to focus on blindly banning child labor. In short, child labor is not the purely evil institution many feel it is and can even be useful in developing third world economies.

At the same time we should still try to attempt to do more to develop those economies in order to not only end child labor but also to reduce all the forms of suffering which go on in the third world. Before examining child labor abroad we should look at it here in the United States. Throughout much of our country we employ thousands of, frequently illegal, immigrant laborers to work on farms producing our nation”s food supply. These laborers most often work in family units, with children working the fields side by side with their parents.

When pesticides are used farm workers are often not warned or given insufficient warning to prevent their exposure to these dangerous chemicals. The result is that here in America, there exists a large number of children who work rather than going to school and while working are exposed to conditions similar or worse than that of third world factories. Little of this is done beyond the limits of the law. Agriculture has been granted many perks in labor law that would seem absurd in other sectors of the economy, despite the hazards involved in this type of work. All age limits imposed on other types of labor are reduced in agriculture.

Outside agriculture 13 and 14 year old children cannot work more than three hours a day during a school week. These restrictions do not exist for farm workers; instead children from the age of 12 can work full days as long as they have their parents” consent. Even ten and eleven year olds can work as long as it is during short seasonal harvests, but they require special permission from the Department of Labor. Even these minimal restrictions can be avoided as many of these laborers do not speak English, do not know their rights, and are generally afraid of going to the authorities for fear of being deported from the country.

Workers endure this system for an estimated average annual income of $7,500, a rate few Americans would be willing to accept. They are paid poorly, the rights they don”t know exist are abused, they are exposed to pesticides, and their children are not given the opportunity to get an education. This makes one wonder why they even come here. The answer is that the money they earn here is better than what they would make at home. Despite the abuse they suffer, it is worth it for the amount they get paid. Not only that, but here their labor is somewhat regulated by the government.

Conversely, in Mexico regulation is often relaxed or nonexistent. It is better for children to work here where they at least are protected, even if minimally, than in Mexico where the same is not true. While working here they are able to send or take money home and support relatives. Evidence throughout the world has proven that when the opportunity for education is low or when the schools in an area are poor, the rate of children working is high. With this in mind we should work to improve education in Mexico. The family members supported by their farm-working relatives would be able to educate their children.

This, in turn, would improve the economy in future years, making it no longer worthwhile to come to the United States to work. Better education in Mexico could make migrant farm workers in the United States a major source of growth for the Mexican economy. Internationally the situation is frequently similar. Eighty percent of child laborers abroad work in agriculture. Only eight percent of children work in manufacturing and of those only five percent manufacture items for export. This leaves a very small number of children worldwide that we can have much of an effect on through import restrictions.

What we should do is try to limit the reasons that children work abroad, not just the demand for their labor. If a family will starve without the work of their children our efforts should be focused on increasing the wages their parents receive. The best way to do this is improving their level of education. It is too late to achieve this for the current generation, but we can use the labor of some children to improve the education of others to help future generations. Organizations like Rugmark, Kaleen, and Care & Fare are excellent examples of where international efforts should be focused.

Essentially they take funds from the sale of each rug sold internationally and invest those funds in schools and hospitals for children in the country in which the rugs were made. Organizations like Rugmark focus on banning child labor from the carpet making industry but that is not necessary. As long as they collect money from the sale of carpets they are able to improve the economy. With those funds they can invest in education for the rest of society. Taking children from the carpet making industry will only move them into other, unregulated industries that could be more dangerous and detrimental to their development.

Using organizations like Rugmark and Kaleen would be improving the economy on the backs of children, but perhaps this is a price we must pay for improvement. One other problem in the third world that deserves examination is that of children working when their parents do not. There is a high correlation in South Asia between child labor and adult unemployment. The reason for this is not definite, but one can only assume that it is due to either the parents not wanting to work or employers preferring children to adults. It is known that employers frequently rather have children in their shops as they complain less and are more pliable.

If they are unwilling to employ adults in they factories, then this is a matter for the governments of those states. They must enact and strictly enforce laws ensuring that children are not working in their parents place. It is one thing for a child to work in order to feed their family, but another because the parents are too lazy or an employer to greedy to hire them. Education could still be a force to decrease child labor here. As child labor is high when educational opportunity is low, the mere act of building a school and hiring good teachers could do much to decrease child labor in the near future.

Parents might decide that if their children could get a good education and live a better life, that they should work instead of their children. The main idea of what has been outlined above is that the best tool for reducing child labor is education. This is an investment, and as such the rewards may not be reaped for decades, but it is still worth the effort. We should use education, even if it must be funded or supported by the work of children, to improve the economies of countries dependent upon child labor.

This is a pragmatic solution and one that is not beautiful, but if we were to merely ban importation of items produced by children we would in effect be cutting off our collective nose despite our face. Without educational opportunities in third world states children not working will only be street children, doing nothing with their time. We should also not be unwilling to encourage cultural change when it allows parents to stay home and do nothing while their children labor away in factories. Education is not a creative solution to the problem of child labor, but it is really the best tool we have to save future generations from suffering.