Child labor is the employing of children to do work in harsh conditions. This topic is a harsh and very difficult issue to deal with it. There are many reasons why people want to keep child labor and many reasons to get rid of it. Child labor has originated from poverty. Many families around the world live in poverty. Those families look to child labor for a source of income and support to survive the month. Child labor creates harsh working conditions for children, families suffer, and banning child labor won't solve the problem.
Many children are not respected by their employers and work in dangerous working conditions. "Over a million formers Kenyan school children now work producing crops. These jobs are dangerous, as children are overworked, underfed, and ill from exposure to pesticides"(Fanning 85). Len Morris, film maker, says," eyes get poked, legs get cut, arms get scraped. There are no doctors. If a child is injured, he or she is left to suffer" (Morris 89). This is just one of the hundred different types of harsh child labor. Child labor is growing larger everyday because poverty is increasing in many countries in today's world. This results in many systems that participate in child labor, meaning that any country that has high result poverty is included in the system that participates in child labor.
Many families and corporations suffer because of child labor laws. There were about 20,000 children that worked in the garment factories, until a new reform came out (Weiner 167). Now children are now to put to school. This may sound good, but its not in Bangladesh. The statistic is that 35% of kids in Bangladesh don’t make it past primary grades (Weiner 167). Bangladesh has suffered because it depends on apparel exports for three- fourths of its vital foreign- exchange dollars (Weiner 167). "The United States buys about 40% of the $4.5 billion in apparel exported by Bangladesh, helping turn the country into one of the worlds largest producers of men's dress shirts and khaki pants" (Weiner 168). This means once Bangladesh factories lay off thousands of their children workers, this means that they won't be able to produce as much as they could before. This will allow big countries, like the United States, to stop buying as much products from them. When this happens Bangladesh's economy will decline drastically.
Banning child labor won't solve the problem of keeping children safe and economic problems. Child labor originates from poverty. "Ban on the worst forms of child labor in poor countries is unlikely to be welfare improving" (Pallage 195). Children end up working in the illegal or black market sector of the economy. Parents in poorer countries, just like in richer countries, do not want their children to work. Poor parents only look to child labor to receive income to survive." Poorer countries and their citizens (including children) do not benefits from he ban of child labor( Weiner 198). "Many young former factory workers ended up in far more dangerous jobs, including prostitution, because their families depend on their wages for survival" (Weiner 171). "One girls told me," I was earning $39 at the garment factory and I was helping my seven member family survive. Please give my job back"(Shefali 171). Families use their children as a source of income and support. Without having their children working in the factories, families are suffering even more. Families would now have to put their kids in more dangerous jobs, which make the families in poverty situation more difficult to deal with.
The question is, who is helping with the topic of child labor? There are many ways to slow down child labor, but it's very difficult to end child labor. In the previous paragraphs child labor has originated from poverty, so the only way to end child labor is to end poverty. People are responsible to take care of this topic. There is one idea to slowly end child labor which is, improving economic conditions by promoting free trade is a more effective and long lasting solution to end the need for child labor (Weiner 194). Corporations and laws have helped and even hurt countries that use child labor. Some children benefit by going to school to get an education. Many children end up still working more dangerous job just so their families can survive. There are many organizations like the International Labor Organization that help end child labor. The only way to end this harsh topic is for that people around the world help each other out of poverty.
