Child Labor In Gold Mines Essay

Child labor is the working of young adults slaving away for low payment. Since old times, adolescents have worked to support their household, especially the families that live on a farm. Most children worked to help bring in money because their parents didn’t have jobs.The young children were forced to slave away long hours in risky and unsanitary conditions, with their pay extremely

If you were to go to a restaurant right now how old do you think your waiter would be? Twenty? Thirty? What if I told you that your waiter was an eight year old? What if the eight year wasn’t working in a nice restaurant but instead was working in a dangerous factory? During the Industrial Revolution, child labor was completely legal. In fact, many companies hired children on purpose because they didn’t have to pay them as much and also because they were more obedient than adults. Thankfully child labor is now illegal and you most likely won’t get a job until you’re about 16 years old if not older.

The Gilded Age was a time where poor American citizens had to suffer with poor living standards while the rich part of the population thrived with money. The problems that occurred during the Gilded Age were mostly solved during the Progressive Era in the 1890s. By creating child labor laws, decreasing political corruption and improving the poor living standards of the lower class, many of the problems from the Gilded Age were solved.

Throughout history, children have always worked, either as apprentices or servants. However, child labor reached a whole new scale during the time period of the Industrial Revolution. Throughout the time frame of late 1800s-early 1900s, children worked long hours in dangerous factory conditions for very little wages. They were considered useful as laborers because their small stature allowed them to be cramped into smaller spaces, and they could be paid less for their services. Many worked to help support their families, and by doing so, they forwent their education. Numerous nineteenth century reformers and labor groups sought to restrict child labor and to improve working conditions.

During the late 1800’s and the early 1900’s child labor was a social issue that developed in the United States. In the early 1900’s, so many children ages 16 and under were working in American mine and factories. Our kids should not be forced to work at such an early age, they need education and a good childhood that they will always remember. Some children that are as young as 4 years old are being forced to work in crammed, dangerous factories. These factories are full of poisonous fumes and diseases that can obviously kill. Kids as young as 13 are being forced to work around 13 hours a day. Working these 13 hours is exactly what most adults are working at the time. Kids are also earning a lower wage since they are minors, employers

When their work do not affect their “health and personal development or interfere with their schooling,” they do not fit the negative notion of child labor (ILO, 1996). Children sometimes assist their parents with housework and take a part in building family businesses without their working hours affecting primary education. This is indeed a beneficial experience for children, because they learn to be productive within their communities. On the other hand, ILO (1996) applies the term child labor when work “is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children; and interferes with their schooling by; depriving them of the opportunity to attend school; obliging them to leave school prematurely; or requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work.” When child labor is engaged in enslavement, separation from families, and misplacement of children on the streets, ILO experts refer to it as the most extreme forms of child

“I believe in the children of the future,” are lyrics of The Greatest Love of All, made famous in 1977 and 1985 by George Benson and Whitney Houston respectively. They believed in the value of children in our society and that they should be protected. However, those people believed in a child 's capacity to change the world in the future. While people in the past saw children as a way to change the world while they were children. In the late seventeenth century, industrialization arose in England ushering in a new era of industry in our world. More industry means more workers, including children. With the rise of industrialization in a nation, child laborers are viciously abused due to their niche roles in production and their families

Children are being robbed of their childhood by corporations, that do not care about them. These corporations turn a blind eye towards the dissatisfying life, that is led by these children. They do not care about the children's education or the manner in which they grow up, and they expose them to harsh physical labor and unsatisfactory pay. These children are robbed of the years in which they should lead a normal child's life, and they don't get to truly enjoy being a child. These children are exposed to unhealthy situations to both the body and the mind,situations that a child should not be involved in. They are often unable to pursue proper academic studies, because of their jobs, and this could be because they aren't allowed to study, or simply that the lifestyle they lead doesn't allow them to study. On the other hand, children working at a younger age helps them shape an appreciation for hard work, and they learn to value money and time. Working at an early age also helps shape the economy of the third world countries that these children work

As early as the 1830’s Child Labor in the U.S. was already starting to arise. In rural communities child labor on the farm was common, children being employed in factories or mills didn’t seem to be much of a concern to people. In 1830 laws were passed prohibiting children to be hired in an industrial or factory type setting. By 1800, some states passed a large amount of laws prohibiting child labor. Often times these laws did not apply to immigrants so they were often abused on the immigrants which lead to the immigrants living in poor places working for long hours for very little pay. Immigrant or not, child labor back in the 1800’s was a way of life.

With some cases, the father’s income is not enough to feed the family, and the mother can’t get a job so the only option left is sending children into labor. Even if the family isn’t in debt, they still need money for clothes, food, education. Depending on the work, children can go to school and work, others have no choice but to work. According to the Child Labor Public Education Project, some families actually rely on child labor to give them even a chance at a better life, and child labor can give them as little as a penny every week. It also states that over one-fourth of the world’s population lives in poverty, in countries where there is little economic activity or companies where people, mainly men, can earn good wages.

Child Labor in the 1700s and 1800s was a definite form of abuse to children because they were often severely underpaid, worked much longer hours than even an adult should, and were often exposed to harsh and dangerous conditions. Children were on average five times cheaper to employ then adults, and were expected to work the same hours- which, in mining communities, could mean 14 hour days (Britain , Great. “Report on child labour, 1842.” The British Library, The British Library, 6 Feb. 2014, www.bl.uk/collection-items/report-on-child-labour-1842).

The Article “Children working in the Pennsylvania coal mines” by McClure’s Magazine is about how boys working as “Slate Pickers” in mines in Pennsylvania because they are so poor. The author said he walked up to a child picking up coal. The child threw the coal down because she thought he was a cop. They could only get coal off the ground. A lot of young boys worked at the coal mine as a“slate Picker” so they could make money for their family. The boys all have to sign a paper agreeing that they are the legal age to work in a mine. Most of the time the boss and father of the boy would lie so the boy could get into the mine. The boys would usually be way younger than what they said. In addition, they worked in harsh conditions. They would be

The next time when you are out on your shopping trip, chances you may have support a business that exploits children. It is very disturbing and heartbreaking to learn many children are chained to looms for 12 hours a day because families need to have their child bringing home a small amount of moneys. Child labor has always been a difficult subject to address, the topic have become much more complicated and prolific.

Child labour is the employment of children as money earners. It became a serious social problem in the Industrial Revolution in Britain during the 1700's, and the problem spread to other countries as they became industrialized. The problem arose when children, many below the age of 10, were employed by factories and mines. The youths were forced to work long hours under dangerous and unhealthy conditions, and their wages were very small. Child workers were often deprived of the chance to attend school. Uneducated, the only work they were capable of doing was unskilled labor. Thus, they had little chance to improve themselves.

In the United States, child labor and sweatshops are illegal, and society frowns upon any business that exploits children in the production of goods. Though most would say that they would not support a company that uses child labor to produce its goods, almost everyone has, in fact, knowingly or unknowingly, supported these businesses in one way or another. Children are involved in the production of many of the everyday goods we import from overseas, including the manufacturing of clothes, shoes, toys, and sporting equipment, the farming of cocoa, cotton, sugarcane, and bananas, and the mining of coal, diamonds, and gold (The U.S. Dept. of Labor). Often, we are blinded to this fact.