Talk:Child labour

This obviously shouldn't be here

"Child Labour : The only way of survival for the children

In india it happens like even if the child wants to read and write ,which basically implies that if he/she wishes to go to a school or college,he/she cant go because they don't even have money for their food.So how is it going to be possible for them to go to the school and obviously the huge amount of fees is not affordable to them.So the only way to do this is "EARN AND LEARN".This means in the day time they can have a part-time job which is sufficient enough for their studies."

This section should obviously be removed, why is the article locked in with this present?

Untitled

What is the typical lifespan of a child that starts to work at a very young age!? --Xalosj (talk) 18:45, 14 March 2009 (UTC) ~That's like asking the average lifespan of blonde people. 75.118.170.35 (talk) 21:44, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

child labor is bad

I am not sure but I am almost certain that it reduces the lifespan. It is NOT like asking the average lifespan of blonde people because the environment that a laboring child is in can cause much harm and can often reduce the lifespan, therefore reducing the average lifespan of a child that starts to work at a very young age. -epic93 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.185.26.251 (talk) 16:15, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

How can you assert that child labor reduces life span if you don't have any sources or statistics to back that up? And sure it "can" cause much harm or reduce lifespan like driving with your kid in your car "can" reduce lifespan. The word "can" means nothing. Also if we were to find stats about the lifespan of kids working vs not working, the stats would have to take into consideration family income levels because families that have kids working are more likely to be poor and therefore more likely to have poor health care, etc. 76.176.28.68 (talk) 15:57, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

The post was originally asking for sources. I second that they be provided.

Friedman on child labour

"According to Milton Friedman, before the Industrial Revolution virtually all children worked in agriculture. During the Industrial Revolution many of these children moved from farm work to factory work. Over time, as real wages rose, parents became able to afford to send their children to school instead of work and as a result child labour declined, both before and after legislation.[26]"

However, I can't seem to find any essay by Friedman discussing this issue. The source is utterly unhelpful, backing up the second sentence rather than the first. Is there an actual source for this? (124.122.172.156 (talk) 18:48, 22 October 2009 (UTC))

Show business

Involving children in show business, is it considered child labour? Are there any restrictions? Alone Coder (talk) 22:28, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

child labour

is children working as a supplier in mess is not an offence???????? plz give an answer....... and give an idea to eradicate this.... bcoz in my locality, lot of children were working as mess supplier....NOTE: chairmanship was an ex-politician(ex-mla)..... plz mail me... selvaramasamy90@yahoo.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.252.245.228 (talk) 12:48, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Hai friend I m also agree with u r feelings........... because I too see lot of children still work like a slave!! &I m the one who is seeing this thing & i can't stop my self,so called the police they came there & arrested that man, that child to hostel where such childrens were live. But there also that child don't want to live there.Why??????????????????????????? Can u tell me [my ID is sattti_3868@yahoo.co.in]so plz mail me what is the reason???????????? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.31.140.52 (talk) 17:19, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Pre-industrial history

The historical section begins at the Industrial Revolution. This excludes the important context of the continuing practice of child labor from agricultural days. Child labor, was, in fact, a social standard for many thousands of years. This is revealed in all kinds of sources... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.132.202.158 (talk) 00:41, 18 October 2009 (UTC) so plz try to stop this offence —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.199.92.205 (talk) 11:32, 8 December 2010 (UTC) Child labour refers to the employment of children at regular and sustained labour. This practice is considered exploitative by many international organizations and is illegal in many countries. Child labour was employed to varying extents through most of history, but entered public dispute with the advent of universal schooling, with changes in working conditions during the industrial revolution, and with the emergence of the concepts of workers' and children's rights.

In many developed countries, it is considered inappropriate or exploitative if a child below a certain age works (excluding household chores, in a family shop, or school-related work).[2] An employer is usually not permitted to hire a child below a certain minimum age. This minimum age depends on the country and the type of work involved. States ratifying the Minimum Age Convention adopted by the International Labor Organization in 1973, have adopted minimum ages varying from 14 to 16. Child labor laws in the United States set the minimum age to work in an establishment without restrictions and without parents' consent at age 16,[3] except for the agricultural industry where children as young as 12 years of age can work in the fields for an unlimited number of non-school hours. See Children's Act for Responsible Employment (CARE Act)

Historical

During the Industrial Revolution, children as young as four were employed in production factories with dangerous, and often fatal, working conditions.[5] Based on this understanding of the use of children as labourers, it is now considered by wealthy countries to be a human rights violation, and is outlawed, while some poorer countries may allow or tolerate child labour. Child labour can also be defined as the full-time employment of children who are under a minimum legal age.

The Victorian era became notorious for employing young children in factories and mines and as chimney sweeps.[6] Child labour played an important role in the Industrial Revolution from its outset, often brought about by economic hardship, Charles Dickens for example worked at the age of 12 in a blacking factory, with his family in debtor's prison. The children of the poor were expected to help towards the family budget, often working long hours in dangerous jobs for low pay,[7] earning 10-20% of an adult male's wage. In England and Scotland in 1788, two-thirds of the workers in 143 water-powered cotton mills were described as children.[8] In 19th-century Great Britain, one-third of poor families were without a breadwinner, as a result of death or abandonment, obliging many children to work from a young age. Two girls protesting child labour (by calling it child slavery) in the 1909 New York City Labor Day parade.

In coal mines, children would crawl through tunnels too narrow and low for adults.[9]

Children also worked as errand boys, crossing sweepers, shoe blacks, or selling matches, flowers and other cheap goods.[7] Some children undertook work as apprentices to respectable trades, such as building or as domestic servants (there were over 120,000 domestic servants in London in the mid-18th century). Working hours were long: builders worked 64 hours a week in summer and 52 in winter, while domestic servants worked 80 hour weeks.

Children as young as three were put to work. A high number of children also worked as prostitutes.[10] Many children (and adults) worked 16 hour days. As early as 1802 and 1819 Factory Acts were passed to regulate the working hours of workhouse children in factories and cotton mills to 12 hours per day. These acts were largely ineffective and after radical agitation, by for example the "Short Time Committees" in 1831, a Royal Commission recommended in 1833 that children aged 11–18 should work a maximum of 12 hours per day, children aged 9–11 a maximum of eight hours, and children under the age of nine were no longer permitted to work. This act however only applied to the textile industry, and further agitation led to another act in 1847 limiting both adults and children to 10 hour working days.

An estimated 1.7 million children under the age of fifteen were employed in American industry by 1900.[11] In 1910, over 2 million children in the same age group were employed in the United States.[12]

Present day

Child labour is still common in some parts of the world, it can be factory work, mining,[13] prostitution, quarrying, agriculture, helping in the parents' business, having one's own small business (for example selling food), or doing odd jobs. Some children work as guides for tourists, sometimes combined with bringing in business for shops and restaurants (where they may also work as waiters). Other children are forced to do tedious and repetitive jobs such as: assembling boxes, polishing shoes, stocking a store's products, or cleaning. However, rather than in factories and sweatshops, most child labour occurs in the informal sector, "selling many things on the streets, at work in agriculture or hidden away in houses—far from the reach of official labour inspectors and from media scrutiny." And all the work that they did was done in all types of weather; and was also done for minimal pay. As long as there is family poverty there will be child labour.[14]

According to UNICEF, there are an estimated 250 million children aged 5 to 14 in child labour worldwide, excluding child domestic labour.[15] The United Nations and the International Labor Organization consider child labour exploitative,[16][17] with the UN stipulating, in article 32 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child that:

   ...States Parties recognize the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child's education, or to be harmful to the child's health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development. Although globally there is an estimated 250 million children working.[17]

In the 1990s every country in the world except for Somalia and the United States became a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, or CRC. Somalia eventually signed the convention in 2002; the delay of the signing was believed to been due to Somalia not having a government.[18] A boy repairing a tire in Gambia

In a recent paper, Basu and Van (1998)[19] argue that the primary cause of child labour is parental poverty. That being so, they caution against the use of a legislative ban against child labour, and argue that should be used only when there is reason to believe that a ban on child labour will cause adult wages to rise and so compensate adequately the households of the poor children. Child labour is still widely used today in many countries, including India and Bangladesh. CACL estimated that there are between 70 and 80 million child labourers in India.[20]

Child labour accounts for 22% of the workforce in Asia, 32% in Africa, 17% in Latin America, 1% in US, Canada, Europe and other wealthy nations.[21] The proportion of child labourers varies a lot among countries and even regions inside those countries.

Defence of child labour

Concerns have often been raised over the buying public's moral complicity in purchasing products assembled or otherwise manufactured in developing countries with child labour. However, others have raised concerns that boycotting products manufactured through child labour may force these children to turn to more dangerous or strenuous professions, such as prostitution or agriculture. For example, a UNICEF study found that after the Child Labor Deterrence Act was introduced in the US, an estimated 50,000 children were dismissed from their garment industry jobs in Bangladesh, leaving many to resort to jobs such as "stone-crushing, street hustling, and prostitution", jobs that are "more hazardous and exploitative than garment production". The study suggests that boycotts are "blunt instruments with long-term consequences, that can actually harm rather than help the children involved."[14]

According to Milton Friedman, before the Industrial Revolution virtually all children worked in agriculture. During the Industrial Revolution many of these children moved from farm work to factory work. Over time, as real wages rose, parents became able to afford to send their children to school instead of work and as a result child labour declined, both before and after legislation.[36] Austrian school economist Murray Rothbard said that British and American children of the pre- and post-Industrial Revolution lived and suffered in infinitely worse conditions where jobs were not available for them and went "voluntarily and gladly" to work in factories.[37]

British historian and socialist E. P. Thompson in The Making of the English Working Class draws a qualitative distinction between child domestic work and participation in the wider (waged) labour market.[5] Further, the usefulness of the experience of the industrial revolution in making predictions about current trends has been disputed. Social historian Hugh Cunningham, author of Children and Childhood in Western Society Since 1500, notes that:

   "Fifty years ago it might have been assumed that, just as child labour had declined in the developed world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, so it would also, in a trickle-down fashion, in the rest of the world. Its failure to do that, and its re-emergence in the developed world, raise questions about its role in any economy, whether national or global."[36]

According to Thomas DeGregori, an economics professor at the University of Houston, in an article published by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank operating in Washington D.C., "it is clear that technological and economic change are vital ingredients in getting children out of the workplace and into schools. Then they can grow to become productive adults and live longer, healthier lives. However, in poor countries like Bangladesh, working children are essential for survival in many families, as they were in our own heritage until the late 19th century. So, while the struggle to end child labour is necessary, getting there often requires taking different routes—and, sadly, there are many political obstacles.[38]

The International Labour Organization’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), founded in 1992, aims to eliminate child labour. It operates in 88 countries and is the largest program of its kind in the world.[39] IPEC works with international and government agencies, NGOs, the media, and children and their families to end child labour and provide children with

by.... ratnesh kanungo of rps — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.58.116.233 (talk) 15:38, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Indian poverty and child abuse

“Child labour is still widely used today in many countries, including India and Bangladesh. CACL estimated that there are between 70 and 80 million child labourers in India.”

Involved Countries

is it possible to relate to other countries besides India today such as countries in Asia for example? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.26.213.182 (talk) 14:50, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Can Indian government do anything about it? too poor. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Khalidshou (talk • contribs) 16:29, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I think it should be spread upon in order to get a better view of the way child labor globally effects children instead of focusing primarily on one country. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Akatsuki21 (talk • contribs) 15:00, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

What about the childslavery in Europe. Dutch BJZ company for instance rent out children from the age of 6 to work all over Europe in factories, farms or other companies. The French government was the only one to ever protest to this, because children died on the job. and the French could not insure children for work related injuries. The work these children do takes up to 18 hours a day and there are no laws in place to make the owners buy safety gear for them. The children get no education and there is no law on this as they are exported to another country within the EU and therefore are exempt from the national law on education. Even if they were to get any education during the 6 hours a day they have left, it would not amount to them learning anything. If education is given the level of education would not be up to the standard of personal achivement. It would be to make them work better in their work environment only. Several thousand kids a year by one company only is just too much to ignore. And there are many such companies operating in Holland. Something wiki should definitly highlight.

See also

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1pXVAeyisQ

shouldnt UNICEF be included with these links?

Truth or just totally misplaced sentence

Under the "Historical"-section,the first few sentences of the fifth paragraph mentions the following: "A high number of children also worked as prostitutes.[10] Children as young as three were put to work." Seriously, at the age of three? Does not make any sense at all.
AFAIK this was a part of a thorough edit by Graham87 half a year ago, and I chose not to remove it since at least a part of the whole paragraph have listed sources.If someone agrees with me, I would be delighted if they'd remove it. --Samohtas (talk) 18:13, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Newspaper routes

Do you know if there are still children in America who have newspaper delivery routes? Didn't they have to start at 4 or 5 a.m.? I know there were all while I was growing up & not too long ago there were still many, but I don't think there are many now, or I just don't hear of any. Stars4change (talk) 16:33, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Swastin, 5 March 2011

{{edit semi-protected}}

pis save it Swastin (talk) 11:42, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. —GƒoleyFour— 23:10, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from 209.152.45.6, 25 July 2011

Please remove this sentence "And all the work that they did was done in all types of weather; and was also done for minimal pay. As long as there is family poverty there will be child labor", which occurs at the end of the first paragraph of the section titled "Present Day" Although it has a source I find the language overly dramatic and unnecessary. 209.152.45.6 (talk) 22:53, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

 Done. Feezo (send a signal | watch the sky) 06:44, 28 July 2011 (UTC)