Child Labor In The Gold Industry

Child labour is much worse than it is portrayed by the media. Child labour includes the employment of children in the business, food, clothing industries that is considered to be illicit or exploitative (Bonnet, 2017). It denies children their basic rights such as protection and freedom from exploitation. Children, instead of going to school, work in dangerous and physically damaging work due to limited access to resources. Reliable statistics are scare as child labour continues to grow each day in third world countries such as Africa. An abundance of evidence supports the idea that child slavery still exists in modern societies, where an estimation of 218 million children between 5 and 17 years are affected by slavery around the world (ILO,

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

Child labour is a very real problem in the world today, and although it is declining, progress is happening at a slow and unequal pace. Child labour by the International Labour Organization is defined as “work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development (Diallo, Etienne, & Mehran, 2013, p. 2).” In the most extreme forms of child labour it could account for child enslavement, separation from their families, exposure to serious hazards and illnesses and being left to fend for themselves on the streets (Dinopoulos & Zhao, 2007). In order for certain types of work to be included as “child labour” depends on the child’s age, the type of work,

“The right to a proper childhood is considered a human right, but it wasn’t always like that.” Child labor was a major problem during the Gilded Age. It was a disgrace seeing mostly all of the children from the United States working under very poor conditions. Children who were born into a second or third class family were subjected to work in very dangerous jobs, which included many health hazards. Most of these children looked way older than they really were because they were treated that way. All but the smallest babies worked. The children acted like adults instead of the children they were. They were forced to work because if they had the choice to go to school and learn they would’ve chosen that option instead of having to work all day.

The “Gilded Age” was a time between the Civil War and World War I. It was also a time of economic growth. During this time new discoveries were made of new technologies and products. It was the beginning of industrialization. With new discoveries of technology and products that led to a better life for the middle class and a jump in the economic success.

“ Worldwide, there are an estimated 246 million children engaged in child labour. Some 180 million children aged 5–17 (or 73 percent of all child labourers) are believed to be engaged in the worst forms of child labour, including working in hazardous conditions such as in mines and with dangerous machinery. Of these children, 5.7 million are forced into debt bondage or other forms of slavery, 1.8 million are forced into prostitution or pornography and 600,000 are engaged in other illicit activities.”

Many of the products that are used and consumed in the United States are made in other countries. One of the main reasons for multinational corporations to produce goods in countries other than the United States is the cost of production. It is far cheaper to produce goods such as blue jeans, paper goods, and plastic toys to name a few. In recent years the conditions in sweatshops in China, Japan, and elsewhere have garnered public outcry from Countries like the U.S. and most of Europe. The main contention, child labor in dangerous and horrid conditions. However one often overlooked example of child labor in sweatshop-like conditions exists were many people never thought. The chocolate we eat. “From 2013 to 2014 more than 1.1 million children in the Ivory Coast were engaged in the most common Worst Forms of Child Labor as recognized by the United Nations… up from 791,181 children from 2008 to 2009” (Berman, 2015). The benefactors of this child labor are huge multinational enterprises such as Nestle, Mars Inc., and The Hershey Co.

When the United States passed the bill that banned the importation of goods made by child labor, Americans thought that it was a victory for children in third world countries. What Americans neglected to consider was the possible negative side effects that the children were to face. Due to the ban, millions of children have lost their jobs and have been left to starve. Prohibiting theses imported materials is not an effective way to make the lives of working children better. When confronting the controversial issue of child labor, one needs to step into the shoes of the children, diminish child labor stereotypes, and focus on regulations and goals to improve working conditions.

Child labor is unfair and dangerous profession. From unsafe working conditions to their low pay to how their families depended on them.

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

Some children will work in very harsh conditions which could include drug trafficking, prostitution and sometimes in some countries the young children will work in types of military position for their country. A lot of children work in many types of commercial business if they can. You would never believe what these children work in and it is not safe at all for the these children to be working in it, cause it is not safe for adults sometimes also. What’s not safe for adults should not be safe for children you would think? A lot of the work that these children work in are extremely hazardous and the children that will work in these conditions come from extremely poor families and they may also live in a low economic state also. Sometimes these children will work with either no pay at all for their hard work or just little pay for the jobs that they complete. A lot of the commercial jobs that these children are involved have very extreme health risk and concerns to the children

Imagine sending your son or daughter to work just to stay out of poverty or just to get by. This is what some brave parents have to do to their children. The Fundamental reason many families in developing nations send children to work is for plain survival. Wages earned by these children can mean the difference between passable subsistence or being absolutely miserable. Although sending children way before the age of 15-16 may seem terrible looking at what children are working with dangerous tools, it's a way to stay out of poverty, and to continue on with life.

There was a time when there was little child labor and people were forced to work all day for nothing more than a few dollars. Unfortunately, child labor has grown largely recently in the last years. Mainly in Africa and other poor countries, there is about one-fifth of the population of children working because they are poor and because people think it is free since they are children. Laboring children are working endlessly in many countries at toxic and dangerous gold mines. There is always a young child under eighteen that is working constantly to support his or her family in an underground gold mine. We may think that since we are living fine in our nice homes and eating great food that everybody is okay, but they are not and they get only a few dollars a day for working five times harder than you.

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.

It is estimated that one in every seven children, worldwide, are used for child labor. Child labor is a serious issue in our society and needs to be solved immediately. There are thousands of children all over the world who have to work unbearable hours and complete dangerous jobs that expose them to toxic chemicals and these kids get paid less than an average person who makes minimum wage. Child labor is not only happening here in the United States of America but is also happening in places such as Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and in some parts of Africa. For example, in Ghana many kids are getting exposed to a toxic chemical named Mercury. Mercury is harmful to adults but it is extremely dangerous and potentially fatal if children are exposed to it. Mercury can cause attacks on the victims nervous system which can cause lifelong disabilities. “The United Nations (UN) defines child labour as any work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and which is harmful to their physical, moral, and mental development” (Awuku, Mabel D., and Ampomah Patience. "Child Labour is Harmful to the Physical, Moral and Mental.."SIRS Issues Researcher, 22 Jun, 2017, https://sks.sirs.com.) . The human rights violations in Ghana is a result of poverty, an unequal chance at education, and cannot be solved without strong implementations of child labor laws.