Child labour is wide spread across worldwide to many extents, and society is not doing anything to change that. This is a topic that is known by everyone, but very few act against it for several reasons. At an individual’s point of view, based on their ethics and morals, they may not find child labour to be wrong. While similarly in a society their viewpoint can be heavily influenced by the judgment of other members of society. Children across the world are working in unsafe conditions to make products, for cheaper labour and a cheaper price. Their lives are endangered working long shifts in terrible conditions all to be underpaid. Society is not accurately presented to all the information there is on child labour because there is not enough information being reported. In the end, it is an individual’s decision based on how they ethically and morally differentiate right from wrong. Nothing is being done to eradicate child labour because of the price differences, society is not being educated enough on the topic and every person’s definition of what they find ethically right or wrong. The lower price society pays for products are very beneficial to society members but it is detrimental to the children being underpaid to make such products. Child labor has become an issue over the years simply because industries are not ready to pay the high price for adult labor. (Abernethie, 1998, p. 84) Powerful industries do not want to pay more for adult labor that comes with many rights ad regulations. In order to make a higher profit, industries cut back on their labor prices by underpaying children to work long and hard shifts on a daily basis. (Deb, 2012, p. 253) They choose to misuse children and force them to complete hard tasks with min... ... middle of paper ... ...labour is not being resolved in societies Works Cited Abernethie, L. (1998). Child Labour in Contemporary Society: Why Do We Care?. International Journal Of Children's Rights, 6(1), 81. doi:10.1163/1571818 9820493987 Deb, S. (2012). Children's Rights in India: Parents' and Teachers' Attitudes, Knowledge and Perceptions. International Journal Of Children's Rights, 20(2), 241. doi:10.11 63/157181811X616022 Kistenbroker, H. V. (2012). Implementing article 32 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child as a Domestic Statute: Protecting Children from Abusive Labor Practices.Case Western Reserve Journal Of International Law, 44(3), 921. Rea, J. (2010). Child labour ‘child labour exists because we allow it to exist’. Dublin: Development Education Unit, Concern Worldwide. Retrieved from http://www.developmenteducation.ie/media/documents/Concern Child Labour
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. .
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.
Basu, Kaushik, and Pham Hoang Van. "The Economics of Child Labor." The Economics of Child Labor (1998): 412-27. Print.
It is obvious that child labor must be stopped. “What can we do to stop child labor?” is a very broad question that does not have a simple answer. Instead of looking for a broad answer that we can’t seem to find (and that may not exist), we need to start taking small steps each day to save these invisible
Without the government restrictions, one event that would occur would be that our children would be working very long ours, getting paid less than everyone else. Our children could be doing the same jobs adults do or should do, but get paid significantly less. “Nearby, nine-year-old Cristina works alongside five family members, including siblings and cousins. This is her second week- end in the fields and she struggles to keep up with the others. Together, the six hope to earn $100 for a full day’s work, which averages out to around $2 per hour worked. More than a dozen other children are working in the same field. They lean over to snip and gather onions. Exhaustion paints their faces as they carry heavy buckets to burlap sacks stationed around the field. The children earn about a penny for every pound of onions picked” (Child Labour Stories). This implies that the children are doing labor that is significantly harder than the average middle-class jobs, and getting paid as if it is worth nothing. These children should get paid as equal as adults, because they are working even harder tha...
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 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.
The causes of child labor are many, including poverty, poor education, limiting workers’ rights, poor laws for child labor, global competition, free trade rules, and structural a...
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...
This hostility by the corporations and their desire to acquire unlimited power has led to many negative impacts both on the society and the environment. One of the goals of the corporations is to make huge profits. This has made them buy of small businesses that they may not be able to control in terms of cost of products and labor. Thus, by buying off small businesses they are let as the only players in the field. To fuel their desire to make a lot profit, child labor and low wages have been associating features o...
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.
“I wake up at 3am to water the plants, clean the house, go to market, cook, wash the plates, wash the clothes, iron the clothes. I return to the market three times a day. From 5pm to 9pm, they allow me to go to school. When I return, I have to wash the dishes, then I massage both my male and female employer until 1am. I only have two hours to sleep.” This is how a girl from Buikidnon, Philippines described her experience with child labour to Anti-Slavery International researchers. She is a former child domestic worker who entered domestic work at nine years old, enduring her employer’s abuse.
Child labour is an issue that has plagued society since the earliest of times. Despite measures taken by NGOs as well as the UN, child labour is still a prevalent problem in today’s society. Article 23 of the Convention on the Rights of a Child gives all children the right to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child 's education, or to be harmful to the child 's health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.1 Child labour clearly violates this right as well as others found in the UDHR. When we fail to see this issue as a human rights violation children around the world are subjected to hard labour which interferes with education, reinforces