Child Labor In Sweatshops

We are often unaware or pick to disregard the problem of child labor in sweatshops. However, even though most people are not conscious of this, it is a reality that many children are deprived of their childhood and are enforced to work. It has been estimated by the International Labor Organization (2013) that 250 million children between the ages of five and fourteen work in emerging countries. More than half of these child laborers are hired in Asia, others work in Africa and Latin America mostly.
Sweatshops are factories where workers bear unhealthy and exploitive conditions, such as long hours, unventilated workspaces, low pay, or exposure to toxic resources. Sweatshops are not a perfect place of work for anyone; however possibilities are

often doubled for children. According to the University of Iowa Labor Center (2011), working environments that are harmless and healthy for adults may not be safe for children. In sweatshops, children most frequently do not receive appropriate training and are not sufficiently administered. These two factors radically increase their risks of damages. Providing for their folks, who otherwise would not be able to survive, is one of the most shared factors for child employment in sweatshops. According to University of Iowa Labor Center (2011), children living in scarcity cultivate health problems such as malnutrition, fatigue and anemia. These difficulties make accidents or injuries at work much more likely, and also rise the consequences of the labor and could lead to more everlasting damage to the child’s physique.
As it was just stated, it is evident that working in sweatshops can have many harmful influences on childhood. However, what makes them unsafe? According to Woman Global and Human Rights, sweatshops are packed, dirty, and rat-infested. They are located behind spikey wire fences that are supervised by guards carrying weapons, guests are prohibited and it is also very tough to escape. A 1998 study done in Southern California’s garment industry showed that 75% of the outfit business factories dishonored well-being and safety procedures and were considered dangerous. The hazards, such as congested exits, uncovered electrical parts that could start a fire or cause an electrocution, and a lack of safety guards on sewing and cutting gear to prevent workers from dismemberment, were all found to be serious enough to warrant saying that a misfortune within these locations believed substantial likelihood of death or severe physical injury. The gross violations of care and health laws left the workers exposed and weak.
Not only do sweatshops harmfully impact children’s health, also compromise their mental health and have severe psychological consequences. Child laborers work lengthy hours and frequently do not have the opportunity to go to school, to make friends and to play like children should. Consequently, they do not learn to cooperate with other individuals which could lead to mental well-being problems in the future. According to the Child Labor Public Education Project, children’s social development can be damaged by long hours of work on a consistent basis. The lengthy hours of work also result in children becoming sleep deprived, which can be unsafe as it drop a person’s capability to deal with stress and puts you at risk for depression. According to WebMD (2013), long period lack of sleep makes you 10 times more expected to evolve despair and 17 times as likely to have serious anxiety problems.
Wanda Embar(2011), who advocates children’s rights and causes against child labor in sweatshops, does however acknowledge that sweatshops do generate jobs that otherwise would not exist.

Nevertheless, negotiating the children’s health and learning to help their families out of debt or to nourish their siblings is too high a value to pay in my belief. According to Bhakti Varma (2011), children taking occupations in sweatshops produce a cycle which must be destroyed. The malicious sequence begins when circumstances force children to work which almost unescapably leads to very little chance of them ever being able to create a superior life for themselves. When they start labor young they commonly obtain very little or no education; as they grow up, they remain unschooled and have their offspring young. With no learning or skills, they are lucky to be able to keep their low paying and frequently depressed and hazardous jobs. However, that is not constantly the case; most frequently older grownups lose their occupation to younger workers. Lingering in a low paying job or being jobless makes it hard to have enough money to feed and lead the children to school. Consequently, the children are forced to become child laborers themselves and carry on the

cycle.
As proven in a study by UNAIDS (2010), worldwide the number of people diseased by HIV has been gradually growing since 1990. Opening at 8 million, the number has increased to 34 million in the previous 20 years. Major focuses of the infected victims are people living in the underdeveloped and inferior countries of the world. These disturbing data also have an effect on the child labor in factories. Children whose parents are diseased by HIV or who have become orphans because of the illness, are most likely required to work in sweatshops to live, making it more and more difficult to disrupt the cycle of child labor that was stated in the previous paragraph.
With all the bad effects sweatshops and child labor can take on young people, an obvious question would be why they still exist.

The response is meek, it’s all about the dough. Owners of clothing lines, shoe products, toy shops, electronic businesses and many more see the poor, stranded, unschooled children as a way to censored production costs and rise their incomes. Right now, agreeing to COOP America, “sweatshop workers earn as little as ½ to ¼ of what they need to provide for basic nutrition, shelter, energy, clothing, education and transportation”. Still, for a smaller amount than 1% of Nike’s yearly marketing budget, the salaries of all their employees could be doubled. Unfortunately, the health and well-being of their employees is not what they are fascinated in. As the Maquila Solidarity Network, a work and women's privileges organization has said, corporations hire youngsters for the humble reason that they are less probable to complain about illegal and unjust circumstances. And more significantly, they are less expected to form unions. They are uninformed of their human rights and also will naively have faith in all the falsehoods employers tell them about the cash they will be making. Once they are employed, it is nearly difficult for them to

escape.
If most countries have at least certain form of child employment regulations in place, how is this still problematic? The statement is, most businesses obtain advance warning of examinations, hence they are able to organize and provide the impression that they are functioning according to the law. In detail, Wanda Embar (2011) has believed that most examiners are waged by the sweatshop that they are reviewing. They recognize ahead of time when the appointment will be prepared and they are able to get ready by making the place look openhearted, keeping the child workers out of sight and training the workers on what to say. This specific status quo is precisely what pass on in a Vietnamese Nike factory in 1997 according to Global Exchange. Following a scandal where a sweatshop was informed to have been revealing poisonous vapors 177 times over the permitted limit to its employees, the CEO of the company, Mr. Philip Knight, dedicated to following the OSHA standards. Yet, the sweatshop be given advance warning of testing as a result they could easily just diminish the amount of substances in the air for that day. There is really no way of knowing whether they are effective according to principles or not. It is problematic not to be pessimistic however it would seem that many of the representatives who are in positions of trust have a price.
When observing at the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1959) which says that: “The child shall be protected against all forms of neglect, cruelty and exploitation. He shall not be the subject of traffic, in any form. The child shall not be admitted to employment before an appropriate minimum age; he shall in no case be caused or permitted to engage in any occupation or employment which would prejudice his health or education, or interfere with his physical, mental or moral development.” We are required to confess that the sweatshop conditions are a breach of these announcements. We are capable to demonstrate that factories are operating in an immoral style; data verify that children are exposed to risks and also are targets of various forms of manipulation. These school-aged children, no different from us, ask for better. The way they are being treated is in contradiction of their basics rights and we are sitting back and supporting this inequality. Nevertheless, while the circumstances may seem distressed now, there is expectation for a better future. Teaching others around you and supporting fair trade businesses are all phases that any person can take to shape a superior future.