What Is Child Labor?

By: Nicole Hoelzle

 

     

 

 

 

 

       

 

     

 

      When people hear the word “child labor,” it can lead multiple people down different paths. While child labor was not uncommon during the early 20th century in America, it remains a tremendous controversy in countries commonly in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America. Almost all situations include children placed in hazardous or deathly working conditions starting as young as 5 years old to 17 years old. Not only are these children working treacherous hours of up to 12 hours a day, 7 day as week, more importantly, they are losing a deserved education.  When children leave school at these young ages it limits their ability to end up in successful occupations once more completing the ceaseless cycle of child labor. If this does not seem terrible enough in some cases, children are sold off from their parents in order to pay off the family debts. 

      While there are many different types of child labor, the agricultural sector accounts for the biggest percentage of child laborers. There are almost 170 million children in the world working illegally and roughly 60% of those children work in the fields. Agriculture is the basis of many developing country's economy and these children support the country's wealth with no safety, meager pay, and no opportunities for a better future. Even though slavery in the US was abolished more than 150 years ago imagine living in a world today as a young child already knowing their pressing fate.

      Why use children instead of strong adults one may ask? Poor countries need to find the cheapest labor and children are the easiest targets for working long and hard hours. Moreover, without a proper education most children do not understand how unfairly they are treated and could possibly tolerate more abuse than more experienced adults fighting back. Children are paid less than $1.50 a day and 70% of child workers are not even paid at all because they potentially work for their families or small businesses. These children are reported to work 10-12 hours a day in 100 degree heat adding up to 70 hours a week. That’s almost twice as much as the average full time worker in America and many of these children who work in these harsh conditions are younger than 10 years old. On the cocoa farms, most kids have never even tasted the chocolate that they make

      Many people today take for granted the opportunities to choose from and may not realize other struggles across the world that these children encounter on an everyday basis. Little has been done to fix this issue, and one obvious way to prevent child labor from getting worse is the importance of education. Despite the risky conditions that these innocent children endure, the worst part of all, is that their right to education is taken away from them forever. According to the website of The International Labor Organization, it states that child labor is often defined as, “work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development” (ILO). These tremendous problems cannot be solved overnight, but each year the total child labor number drops but still stands in the millions. Keeping children in school and learning instead of working can provide a more promising future and let them be able to support their family increasingly better than working instead of learning. There is no telling how far these children will go with the chance to develop their own opinions, read and write, and use mathematics.

      However, telling parents to send their children to school isn’t as easy as it sounds. Most parents want to send their kids to school, but the high cost for supplies and uniforms prevents them from spending more than a couple of years learning and it’s back to the farms. These people are faced with the moral dilemma whether to do what’s right and send their child to school or raise enough profit to provide for their families. Child labor in these countries is overlooked, and rather considered more of a norm. Therefore others must fight for those who can’t to end this fight and bring a better future for everyone, especially the deserved education every child should have.