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Child Labor
Introduction
Child labor is a practice that is prevalent throughout the world with as many as 160 million children involved in the practice in 2020 according to UNICEF which accounts for about 1/10th of every child in the world being involved in some form of child labor. This presentation will explore the main issues regarding child labor from a few different perspectives.
https://educateachild.org/explore/barriers-to-education/poverty/child-labor
High Levels of Poverty and Unemployment
It is no coincidence that countries with high levels of poverty and unemployment also have higher-than-average percentage of their child population partaking in some form of child labor. “More than one-fourth of the world's people live in extreme poverty, according to 2005 U.N. statistics. The intensified poverty in parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America causes many children there to become child laborers” (University of Iowa Labor Center, n.d). With so many families living in poverty, it is no wonder that some may look to their children as a means of helping them meet ends meet.
https://www.rappler.com/nation/220834-self-rated-poverty-sws-survey-2018/
Poor Access to Education
For some children, they do not work because they are poor necessarily, but because they lack access to opportunities. In working at such a young age, they hope to help their family get ahead. That is an aspiration that many people share across the world but here in the U.S for example, the vast majority of children have access to a free education but in many other parts of the world, they do not. For example, “Afghanistan’s education system has been devastated by more than three decades of sustained conflict. For many of the country’s children, completing primary school remains a distant dream – especially in rural areas and for girls – despite recent progress in raising enrolment. In the poorest and remote areas of the country, enrolment levels vary extensively and girls still lack equal access” (UNICEF, 2016).
https://www.statista.com/chart/3180/out-of-school-children/
Inadequate Laws and Enforcement
Many countries have legislation that is written in order to protect children from working under hazardous conditions or even from working at all. However, the effectiveness of these laws vary and a big part in that is how willing that country is to enforce these laws or how protective their laws are in the first place. “Published today in the International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, WORLD's analysis revealed that 41 countries do not protect children and youth under the age of 18 from performing hazardous work—a number that rises to 74 when legal loopholes are taken into account—including, for example, such populous nations as Nigeria and Indonesia” (Denly, 2019).
https://phys.org/news/2019-08-child-labor-lacking-countries.html
Culture
In the country of Bolivia, they have an opinion that is very different from many other parts of the world. The legal working age in Bolivia is a meager 10 years old. What makes Bolivia so unique is that many of its people are supportive of this low minimum working age; citing culture as the main reason behind it. “ f you go back to a western point of view from the time, even the Romans, the slaves worked then in a feudal society. It’s the poor people that work. The ideal of the rich people is they dedicate themselves to art, to war, so there’s a kind of negative image that goes with work. While on the other side, in the Andean vision, in the Andean society this was not the case, since very young the children worked with their parents in the fields and all this and there was not this negativity associated with this” (Stewart, 2017).
https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/americas/100000003982850/in-bolivia-legitimizing-child-labor.html
Conflict
“In conflicts and disasters, parents may lose their jobs, and schools may be destroyed. With few other options, children often begin working. Migrant and refugee children are especially vulnerable to child labor. Children can end up separated from their parents, and need to support themselves, or may feel pressure to help support their families. For example, around 60 percent of Syrian refugee families in Jordan rely on money earned by children, due to inadequate aid and dwindling family funds” (Raqib, 2017). It is no secret that in war, no one is hurt more than the innocent. Homes are destroyed, families are displaced, and jobs are lost. All of this goes hand-in-hand in increasing the likeliness of children to end up performing child labor.
https://www.dw.com/en/refugee-family-reunification-in-germany-what-you-need-to-know/a-40449409
Works Cited
“Causes of Child Labor”. University of Iowa Labor Center, n.d. University of Iowa. https://laborcenter.uiowa.edu/special-projects/child-labor-public-education-project/about-child-labor/causes-child-labor. Accessed 9 March. 2022.
“Child Labor”. UNICEF, 2020. https://www.unicef.org/protection/child-labour. Accessed 9 March. 2022.
“Education”. UNICEF, 2016. https://www.unicef.org/afghanistan/education. Accessed 9 March. 2022.
Stewart, Kary. “Is child labor always wrong? The view from Bolivia - podcast transcript”. The Guardian, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/feb/24/is-child-labour-always-wrong-the-view-from-bolivia-podcast-transcript. Accessed 9 March. 2022.
Raqib, Susan. “How Wars and Disasters Fuel Child Labor”. Human Rights Watch, 2017. hrw.org. https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/06/12/how-wars-and-disasters-fuel-child-labor#. Accessed 9 March. 2022.
Denly, Carla. “Child labor protections are lacking in many countries, study finds”. University of California, Los Angeles, 2019. phys.org https://phys.org/news/2019-08-child-labor-lacking-countries.html. Accessed 9 March. 2022.