Have you ever wondered about a 12-year old child working at a store during school hours, when they should be learning? If we put ourselves into the shoes of such children who face child labour, it would seem very challenging and horrendous. Child labour exists, and this is a fact, but we should be focusing on the next steps to eradicate this issue.
Child labour and poverty are inevitably bound together and if you continue to use the labour of children as the treatment for the social disease of poverty, you will have both poverty and child labour to the end of time.
– Grace Abbott
What is Child Labour?
Child labour refers to the exploitation of children under which they are forced out of education to fulfill their work. Industries under which children are asked to do labour include agriculture, mining, manufacturing, serving at restaurants, and being sent to war in extreme cases. This greatly deprives the children of their childhood, as they get little to no education and face many dangerous situations depending on the factories they work in. Not only are they being impacted negatively throughout the factories, but are also tortured physically, mentally, socially, and economically. Moreover, statistics also represent how approximately 215 million children between the ages of 5-17 have been victims of the ongoing issue known as child labour.
What are the Causes of Child Labour?
Parents Viewpoints: Children under child labour come from very poor families and require money to meet their basic needs. In these cases, parents view the child as a solution to end their poverty by sending them to work. Parents have certain mindsets that lead them to look at the short-term solutions by earning money through their child working, instead of the long-term solution of giving the child education, so that they could have a successful career in the future.
Expectations: Sometimes children believe they have expectations or are a burden to follow and help their family. When children are in orphanages, or their parents are very ill, the child wants to earn money so that they could support their family.
Business Owners: A major cause of child labour is the fact that business owners accept children to work in their companies. Many business owners expose children to work through sweatshops and keep them on very low wages, which benefits them.
Lack of Government Action: There is less government action to restrict business owners from accepting children to work for their companies. Moreover, the abusive language and actions the children face are also not accounted for.
Poverty: One of the biggest and start causes of child labour is poverty and the need to survive. Children are sent to work so that they could earn money for the family and meet their basic needs.
What are the consequences of Child Labour?
Education: As parents rely on children to earn money for the family, they send them to work. This deprives the children of education as their efforts and time are focused on labour, instead of attending schools. Connecting this to the long-term consequences, children in these circumstances receive fewer opportunities to secure their future and establish a career.
Health: Most industries children work in involves the use of chemicals, risky machines, and various kinds of toxins. These factors greatly impact the child as they could have serious health conditions, such as diseases and illnesses, or even deaths. Not only can children get illnesses, but can be physically, verbally and mentally be abused by store owners.
What are the solutions to Child Labour?
- Involve children in free education
- Donate money to establish the schools
- Spread Awareness, and raise a voice for all children suffering
- Help end poverty by establishing jobs or other effective ways for the parents to earn money safely
- Focus on undeveloped countries, and poor communities
- Create new legislations to underline the consequences of keeping a child for labour work
- Movies, books, poems, quotes, news, and many more sources should portray this message
- Inform parents that we cannot end pov
- Poverty with child labour
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