Child Labor Essay Research Paper IntroductionChild labor

Child Labor Essay, Research Paper

Introduction

Child labor is a serious problem in many parts of the world, especially in developing countries. Labor is defined as physical or mental work especially of the hard or fatiguing kind. (Webster.s Dictionary) Child labor usually means work that is done by children under the age of 15, which restricts or damages their physical, emotional, intellectual, social, or spiritual growth as children. The International Labor organization estimates that there are 250 million children worldwide, between the ages of 5 and 14, who are now working.

.Africa and Asia together account for over 90 percent of total child employment. (Faraaz Siddiqi) Child labor is especially common in the rural areas of these countries. Usually there are no age requirements for schooling or for work. There are many reasons that these children work; poverty, lack of education, lack of knowledge of one.s rights and cultural tradition are all contributing factors. These children are often working in severe and hazardous conditions. These children are deprived and mistreated. They are often beat or severely punished for making even the slightest mistakes. They receive low wages and perform tasks that are usually the work of adults. The International Labour Office reports that children work the longest hours and are the worst paid of all laborers. These children can be found working on farms, in factories or mines, and even fighting in wars. .Much of the nation.s farmland is worked by toddlers, yokes teams of three-, four-, and five-year-olds who plough, seed and glean fields from dawn to dusk.. (Jonathan Silvers)

Bonded Labor

Three types of bonded labor exist in practice around the world. The first type involves a child inheriting a debt carried by their parents. The enslaved parents find no alternative except to essentially turn over the rights of their child to their masters. Another form of bonded labor occurs with a child being used a collateral for a loan. A parent facing an unusually large or urgent expense would use this method of obtaining necessary money, for example the rebuilding of a home due to damages. A worker can also enter into bondage to their employer by requesting an advance on future wages they expect to earn. In all these cases the debt is consistently increased to a sum beyond the capacity of the worker. Expenses and interest consume all wag and also cause the debt to grow. The debt takes over takes the worker and remains indefinitely. (.Child Labour: The Situation)

Contributing Factors

There are many reasons that child labor is so prevalent in these countries as opposed to here in America. Though restrictions exist in many nations, children do work. Child labor is most concentrated in Asia and Africa, which together account for more than 90 percent of total employment. Though there are more child workers in Asia than anywhere else, a higher percentage of African children participate in the work force. Asia is led by India, which has 44 million child laborers, giving it the largest child work force in the world. In Pakistan, 10 percent of all workers are between the ages of 10 and 14 years. Nigeria has 12 million child workers. Child labor is also common in South America, there are 7 million children working in Brazil. (Siddiqi)

Children work for many different reasons. The most prevalent one being poverty. Children are sent to work to help support their families who might be in such desperate conditions that even the meager salary the children receive will help For example; minors in Paraguay contribute almost a quarter of the total family income. Children are often driven to work by their families. In some developing countries people often have children because they know that they can be profitable.

Schooling problems also contribute to child labor. Children seek employment because there is often no access to schools, whether it.s because of distance or because there are no schools at all. If there is access, the low quality of the school system often makes a working life more desirable than receiving an education. Schools in many of these under- developed countries are often overcrowded, have inadequate sanitation, and unskilled teachers. Parents would often rather see their children working than in a school where they feel they are wasting time. A major reason India has the largest juvenile workforce is because 82 million children are not in school. Only 41 percent of Indians over the age of 15 are literate. (Siddiqi)

Many times the lack of education by both the parents and the children are major contributors to the number of child workers. A non-educated parent doesn.t have the common knowledge to know that by forcing their children to work they are harming them. Even if laws restricting child labor do exist in these countries, the people are virtually unaware of their rights as well as their children.s rights.

Tradition also plays a major part in contributing to the number of child workers in these countries. The established female roles teach that women will not fit into society if

they are educated. Many families raise their daughters solely to take over the household duties in order to release the mother. In India, people of the lower caste system are expected to perform manual labor, and are therefore even less likely to attend school.