Jessica Zammett (FGCU): Child Labor

According to the International Labor Organization, an estimated 211 million children between ages 5 and 14 are working around the world. The website states that, “of these, 120 million are working full time to help support their impoverished families. Although child labor is most common in the Global South, it is found throughout the world, including in the U.S. Child laborers are often exposed to conditions extremely harmful to their physical and mental well-being.”

Child labor can include, but is not limited to work in factories, mining, agriculture, selling items on the streets, and even prostitution. Work is usually done regardless of the weather, and pay is very minimal. Not only is this work tedious and exhausting, but it definitely has the potential to become very dangerous. Would you want your 5 year old to go out and sell blankets or baskets on the street? This is not uncommon in third world countries. In America, it is very well accepted that children between the ages of 5 and 14 should be going to school, or playing.

I know that an adequate education is not available in all parts of the world, but I do agree that education is important and necessary for all children. Children should attend school, and not be forced to work excessively, as most of the jobs are extremely dangerous to children so young.

 Unfortunately, child labor exists in many places throughout the world. It will continue to exist as long as there is family poverty. Child labor will not be disappearing anytime soon, due to the intensive global competition for consumer goods. There are very few consumer goods that are still produced in the U.S. nowadays, so other countries will continue to have cheap labor opportunites.

Works Cited

http://www.laborrights.org/stop-child-labor

This entry was posted on 25. April 2009 at 04:07 and is filed under Introduction to Sociology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.