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Child Labor

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Child labor is can be defined as “employing children who are under aged to work as determined laws of a state” (Pakhare, 2011). Child labor has been an issue for centuries. The years of 1780 through 1840 there was an enormous increase in child exploitation. During the Industrial Revolution it was common to find children working in factories. In 1778, more than 60% of workers in textile mills of England and Scotland were children (ILO, 2010). Children were required to work in poor conditions, often for 16 or more hours in a single day. In some cases, children were committed to work for an employer for a set amount of years in exchange for food, shelter, and clothing. Many poor families needed their children to work in order to pay for food and shelter expenses; the dependence on child labor was vital for survival in many cases. Throughout the 20th century, the need and dependency for child labor substantially changed. Child labor has harmful effects that hurt the physical and emotional development of children, and that is a huge topic all countries should think about when using kids for labor because kids are the future of the societies. In developing countries, around 16% of the child population from age 5-14 years old is involved in child labor (IPEC, 2110). According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), there are 218 million children aged 5-17 years old engaged in child labor (ILO, 2010). The 1900 census in the USA found that 18% of all children (almost two million in all) were child laborers. The Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional laws banning child labor in 1916. The decision was overturned in 1941.
Child labor began to decline as the labor and reform movements grew and labor standards began improving. There were many committees and associations which were created to protect the rights of children. Some of these include the: National Consumers’ League (1899), Juvenile Protection Association (1901), National Child Labor Committee (1904), Child Welfare League of America (1921), and National Commission on Resources for Youth (1970). These committees and associations fought for the rights of children and supported bills passed through Congress to limit the hours, conditions, and types of jobs that children were able to obtain.
There were also several acts proposed and laws that passed which regulated child labor. Some of these include: the Walsh-Healy Act (1936), the Sugar Act (1937), Fair Labor Standards Act (1938), and the Child Labor Deterrence Act (first proposed in 1992 and passed in (1999). In the 1980’s the United States provided global leadership by acting as one of the leading nations in crafting the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). After the United Nations adopted the CRC in 1989, the United States became a participant nation in 1994. However, to date the United States refused to endorse the Convention, joining only one other nation in the world with that status (UN, 2011). Due to the laws and statutes passed throughout the decades of the 20th century, child labor changed drastically. The types of jobs that children could work were controlled and the conditions in which they worked were vastly improved. Although in some countries stopping child labor without doing anything else could leave children worse off. The children could go into drug trafficking, gun smuggling, prostitution, and any other employment with greater personal dangers. In table 1 on the next page, it illustrates some of the largest regions for child labor amongst boys and girls from the ages of 5-14 years old. This is also illustrated in figure 1 below on the comparisons of boys and girls.

Region | Boys | Girls | World (est. in millions) | 140 | 110 | Regions (in percent) | | | Africa | 56% | 44% | Asia (excluding Japan) | 54% | 46% | Latin America & Caribbean | 67% | 33% |
Table 1: Distribution of boys and girls of ages 5-14 in developing countries.
Source: International Labor Organization Bureau of Statistics (1996)

Figure 1: Distribution of boys and girls of ages 5-14 in developing countries. Source: International Labor Organization Bureau of Statistics (1996)

So as you can see from table 1 and figure 1child labor is a serious matter around the world. Eliminating child labor is a gigantic challenge, but over the years with stricter laws in most of the countries it has been paying off, but not enough. In the future hopefully in the third world countries they will understand children needs extensive education to better themselves, to better their families and better their countries and just to be kid. Some things governments around the world could do to stop child labor all together are: reduce poverty in rural areas, government should provide more income opportunities, governments to enforce the laws, and raise awareness in the countries. The most important thing for the children is education, and with that would help them and their families get out of poverty. There also has to be a stronger international standard that can be forced by international law. With countries like Africa, India, Indonesia, and other third world countries there has to be a way to let the kids be kids and just have the adults work. That is easy said than done, because of survival in those countries due to the lack of food, water and shelter. People should not give up, because people have to have hope, and without hope you have nothing.

References

International Labour Organization (ILO), 2011
International Progamme on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC), 2010
Pakhare, Jayashree. (n.d.). Buzzle.com: history of child labor. Retrieved February 16, 2011, from http://www.buzzle.com/articles/history-of-child-labor.html
United Nations (UN), 2011

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