Child Labor Essay
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Child Labor
Until recently, child labor has not been recognized as an issue of important global concern. Developing countries continued, as they had for centuries, the accepted practice of using children as young as four and five to labor in conditions of bondage, serfdom, and slavery. International public attention regarding the plight of the young workers has grown steadily over the past few years, provoking world wide discussion of the problem and possible ethical solutions. The International Labor Organization estimates that at least 250 million children between the ages of five and fourteen are working in developing countries. The majority work under harmful and exploitative conditions. These children labor in a wide range of economic activities such as:
? agriculture
? animal husbandry
? commercial sex industries
? construction
? fishing
? garbage scavengers
? manufacturing
? mining
? quarrying
? tourism
Child labor is the single most important source of child exploitation and child abuse in the world today. Companies utilizing underdeveloped countries must be willing to accept the social responsibility that a further developed society expects. This includes meeting the legal, economic, ethical, and philanthropic elements of social responsibility.
The first element of social responsibility is the legal element. The legality and illegality of child labor varies from country to country. The Department of Labor and Bureau of International Labor Affairs defines child labor as any economic activity performed by a person under the age of 15. Not all work performed by children is detrimental or exploitative. Child labor does not usually refer to performing light chores around the house, or youths helping out in the family business. Rather, the child labor of concern is generally work that prevents effective school attendance or is performed under conditions hazardous to the physical and mental health of the child (Dept. of Labor 2). Although this minimum age requirements and guidelines apply to the 34 participating countries of the International Labor Organization, there are many other countries where there is no official age or defining line between when children become adults, and/or restrictions as to what type work should or should not be performed by children.
In 1998, the Department of Labor and Bureau of International Labor Affairs collected data from 16 countries where child labor had been identified as a major problem. It is estimated that just from these 16 participating countries, that a low figure of 250 million children, between the ages of five and fourteen were reported as working. One-half of these children are reported to work full-time. One-third of them working in extremely dangerous conditions and 90 million of them never attend school (Douglas and McIntyre 26). The Department of Labor and International Labor Affairs considers this figure to be low. In developing countries children helping out and child labor are synonymous with family survival and households may be reluctant to report when children are working. Also, each country chooses its own definition of what constitutes a child and what classifies as labor . Some countries do not count children working in either paid or unpaid work, while other countries count children as laborers only when the child is a full-time paid laborer. Additionally, certain countries do not classify students as child laborers no matter how many hours they work outside the home, while others count students working even one hour a week as employed . The International Labor Organization distinguishes three types of child labor. There are children who work with their families-on the farm, in the home or for a family business. Second, there are those who are paid to work in factories or who have been hired out or even sold by their families. Third, there are the street children (Dept. of Labor 4).
Children working at home or within a family-like arrangement are regarded as a socially acceptable practice in most countries. Additionally, this type work generally entails doing strenuous household work in exchange for little or no pay and/or room and board. Children who work as domestic servants, within their own home or for another family, often times suffer physical, mental, and sexual abuse. However, this type of child labor is hardest to detect and curtail since it does have a level of socially acceptable status. The same situation also applies to children who work on the family farm or for the family business. The fact that children are not paid makes the work seem insignificant, yet children working on the farm and family business greatly contributes to a family s survival.
The second type of classification of child labor that the International Labor Organization identifies are those children who are paid to work in factories or who have been sold by their families. In most developing countries there is no social welfare system set-up and the majority of the socioeconomic status of the people are poor. In these countries, you will find the worst and most exploitative types of child labor. Commonly refereed to as sweatshops, children are paid as little as legally possible. Furthermore, the child may have been sold to the business as an unpaid servant. The child receives no pay, is provided with little or no benefits, and generally works in unsafe and unhealthy working conditions. This type of exploitation is on the rise due to globalization and its effects on the poor. As long as industrialized countries continue to outsource and contract to developing countries, it will be hard to implement, mandate, and enforce strategies to eliminate illegal child labor.
The third type of child labor classification that the International Labor Organization identifies is that of the street children. Because of their family s impoverished condition, many of these children have been cast aside. Others, are runaways or have been separated from their families because of war. (Douglas and McIntyre 46). Whatever their situation, they battle to survive the odds. They do this by begging, stealing, and prostitution. Regarded as criminals, many people feel that the children deserve whatever happens to them. Most countries have enacted minimum wage age laws. However, as long as inadequate enforcement remains a problem, the exploitation of children will continue. Identifying the extent of child labor within a country is an essential step towards the development of effective strategies for eliminating and preventing the problem.
The second element of social responsibility is the economic element. In any debate over the ethical considerations of child labor, the economic element usually rises to the top. On one side of the debate is the fact that children should not have to suffer the atrocities that occur when forced into work at an early age. When the subject of child labor comes up in discussion, many people will immediately address the problem as it relates to foreign countries in the orient or South America. What many people do not realize is that child labor is a problem in our own country. Migrant farming, coal mining communities, and the garment industry are only of the few examples of fields that remain at the center of the child labor dispute. These children are forced to work from dawn until sunset, with little food and limited education. Most of these children are never outside of their own limited environment, so no one outside of their world realizes what is happening. When these children are denied a childhood along with an education, they will rarely escape the poverty into which they were born. The United States has severe restrictions on child labor,...
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