Modern Day Child Labour

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Modern Day Child Labour

While we, as Americans, are currently living in the most advanced civilization up to this time, we tend to disregard problems of exploitation and injustice to nations of lesser caliber. Luckily, we don't have to worry about the exploitation of ourchildren in factories and sweet shops laboring over machines for countless hours. We, in the United States, would never tolerate such conditions. For us, child labor is a practice that climaxed and phased away during and then after the industrial revolution. In 1998 as we approach the new millenium, child labor cannot still bea reality, or can it? Unfortunately, the employment and exploitation of children inthe work force is still alive and thriving. While this phenomenon is generally confined to third world developing nations, much of the responsibility for its existence falls to economicsuper powers, such as the United States, which supply demand for the cheaply produced goods. While our children are nestled away safely in their beds, other children half way around the world are working away to the hum of machinery well into the night.

With the development of a global market place, industry and manufacturing is no longer confined to its mother country. Worldwide demand has created an expanded market for competitive goods and services. Consequently, many large corporations have located their primary centers of production overseas in third world nations, which manufacture goods at bottom line costs. This demand for cheaply produced goods has also lead to a demand for laboring workers (Henderson 49). As a result, millions of children have become bonded laborers to fulfill this need for cheap labor. Essentially, the unknowing consumer fuels this pr...

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...edia coverage, the world is now aware. Fortunately, this awareness has also lead to action. Since the early nineties, many international organizations have put forth much effort to ensure that this injustice is amended. With enough hard work and dedication to the cause, the issue of child labor will hopefully be nonexistent in the new millenium, providing new hope and prospects for the children of the future.

Works Cited

- Buckley, Gail Lumet. "Fashion as Baal." America 17 Aug. 1996: 5.

- Henderson, David R. "The Case for Sweatshops." Fortune 28 Oct. 1996: 48-50.

- McCarthy, Abigail. "Pulling the Rug Out: Let's End Child Labor." Commonweal 22

Sept. 1995: 7-8.

- Senser, Robert A. "Danger! Children at Work." Commonweal 19 Aug. 1994: 12-14.

- Thullen, George. "Exploitation of Children." Unesco Courier Oct. 1994: 26-28.

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