Child labor is a devastating and cruel practice that torture body and soul of every child in the world. Millions of children across the globe are involved in labor, which inhibits their educational opportunities as well as threatens their health and safety and ultimately deprives them of their youth and they have historically been a part of the labor force; especially, with the advent of industrialization. Approximately 215 million children around the world work, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO), a United Nations agency responsible for overseeing international standards of labor. Many child laborers are deprived of any type of formal education, experience limited mental and physical development and receive minimal training in basic interpersonal skills. This lack of development leaves them ill equipped to discern the dangers of their working conditions and unaware of the long term effects of such hazardous labor. There are many instances throughout history, in which children have been indentured or forced into child slavery within the labor market because they were viewed as cheap, manageable, and renewable labor resources by individuals and business. Due to those facts, I believe that child labor is very bad and harmful for the children, country, and the world; therefore, we should not have child labor anymore to see a better world by giving a better and bright future of our children.
The difficulty of tasks and harsh working conditions create a number of health problem for the children. Long-term health problems, such as respiratory disease, asbestosis, and a variety of cancers, are common in countries where children are forced to work with dangerous chemicals. Studies in many countries have shown that children working in agriculture suffer particularly high rates of injury. More than half (53 percent) of all child laborers worldwide do hazardous work (International Labour Organization). In the Philippines, for example, a survey found that children in agriculture had five times greater risk of injury compared with children working in other industries. Several examples conditions cause the relatively high rates of injuries, health problems, and fatalities among agricultural child laborers are exposure to pesticides, working with machinery and sharp tools, lack of clean water, hand-washing facilities, and toilets, beginning to work at very early ages, often between 5-7 years of age, and less restrictive standards for agricultural work. Alice, Côte d’Ivoire, from a suburb of Abidjan, a big city in the Ivory Coast, is one of a million number of child labor in the world. She became a speaker on Children’s World Congress on Child Labor and Education in New Delhi, India, September 4-8 2005. Alice has never been to formal school beyond nursery school. Her mother is illiterate and works at home. Her father, a mason, completed secondary school. After nursery school, Alice was free at home. Her friends went to the garbage dump to earn money. She needed money and wanted to be with her friends, so at age 8 she started working at the dump too. She collected bottles, shoes, and plastic bags, and sold them directly to people who came to the dump. She did not report to a boss. She worked 8 hours a day, from 9 a.m. until 12 p.m. and from 1 until 5 p.m., six days a week. She took an hour break for lunch.
The dump was near her house, so Alice went back and forth on foot. She made about 1,000 CFA franc ($1.80 US dollars) a day for the goods she sold. Alice worked for three years, from age eight to age thirteen. She did not like working in the dump, but she needed the money for food (especially lunch) and clothes. She had one meal a day. Then, her live is changed when she met a non governmental organization called Africa Rescue and Assistance, which teaches children over the age of 14 to read, write, and sew. Child labor happens mostly because the children families are poor and cannot get an education. Many poor countries rely heavily on exports of primary commodities, which have suffered from declining prices as global competition has increased and markets have tightly concentrated with a few firms dominating key sectors. Most poor countries face staggering interest payment on development. While child laborers may not have much of an effect now on the world’s economy, they will play a role in shaping the world when they grow up. This is a key reason why we should try to solve child labor now. Entrusting the world to uneducated and crippled people has never been desirable. In order to have educated, healthy, contributing members to the world’s economy later, it is necessary to eliminate child labor now, before the economic effects start to show up. Many researchers and practitioners agree that poverty is the main determinant of child labour supply, and that child labour significantly increases the income and the probability of survival of the family.
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Several estimates exist of the proportion in which children contribute to family income. For instance, Cartwright and Patrinos (1999) find that children in urban Bolivia contribute on average around 21% of family income. In these circumstances, the survival of the family depends on child labor irrespective of whether it is carried out in hazardous or non-hazardous activities, in formal or informal economy, or even in paid or unpaid family activity. This last point deserves clarification: unpaid family workers contribute to the household’s income and survival by helping their parents in both paid and self employment activities. It is common for families to engage in sub-contracting where the family is paid at piece rates, so that the help of children is crucial to increase household productivity and daily income. Moreover, children (especially girls) are often engaged in unpaid family activities in order to free their parents (especially their mothers) from housework and allow them to undertake paid work. If the work of children is needed for meeting the essential needs of the family, any effort to reduce child labor (both in formal and informal occupations) must take into account that the income of families involved will be affected negatively, often pushed below the survival level. Hence, income transfers and/or subsidies for poor families with children in school become of crucial importance for the effectiveness of child labor reduction programs.
An opposing view believes that parents in developing countries do not differ from parents in rich countries in how they view child labor. Researchers have observed that parents in poor countries generally say that they would rather their children attend school and work less. So why is child labor so pervasive? For the simple reason that impoverished households need their children to work. Households that cannot meet their basic needs depend upon the income of their children for survival. Without the income from working children, parents in poor households may have to choose which children to feed. Moreover, schooling is expensive in most of the developing world. Thus, it is not uncommon to see some children working so that their siblings may attend school. If governments could somehow prevent children from working, we might see less schooling rather than more, because the loss of income from working children would make schooling even more unaffordable. In conclusion, child labor in the world happens because the lack of the family’s economy and because they are inexpensive paid labor. This cruel practice has done some negative effects to our child: health and economy problems.
While it is good in one side for family’s economy, it is also give bad effects to the world’s economy at the same time. None of these children has the privilege of going to school and being able to go to a house at the end of a day. A way to prevent child labor is to donate money so that a child can have an education. Build a shelter for the children living in the streets is also another way to prevent them from abuse, and give them a school program inside the shelter. Maybe doing a raid as often as possible can be other way to prevent child labor in industries or factories, and give a heavy penalty for those who employ an underage child.
