Essay On Child Labor In America

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

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.

Throughout the 1700’s and the early 1800’s child labor was a major issue in American society. Children have always worked for family businesses whether it was an agricultural farming situation or working out of a family business in some type of workplace. This was usually seen in families of middle or lower class because extra help was needed to support the family. Child labor dramatically changed when America went through the Industrial Revolution. When America’s industrial revolution came into play, it opened a new world to child labor. Children were now needed to work in factories, mills, and mines. These were not ordinary jobs for young children, these jobs required much time, effort, and hard work. “American

Children would breathe hot air, would have sweat dripping down their faces and would taste the dirt and salty tears. Their backs and every other part of their body would start aching by the age of 14. This is what happened during the early 1900's when child labor existed. Families in the early 1900's (also known as the Progressive Era) would work their own children for 16 hours a day in awful conditions with very little pay. The abolishment of child labor made modern children not have to feel the pain that children would experience. The end of child labor in the United States affected children today because if the end of child labor never happened then child labor would still be a tremendous problem in the United States today.

During the 18 and beginning of the 19th century in certain regions of the U.S child labor made up more than 40 percent of the population (Wolensky). That’s almost half of the working population. Since the beginning of time children have always been known to help their families with domestic tasks. Most of these kids worked in factories because they were easy to control and paid less than adults. Kids earned less than half of what adults made in the work force. In these factories they usually cleaned under and inside machines while functioning because of their small size.. That’s how these kids felt as it was described in a article in our history book. They were always in danger of getting hurt or even dying, which many did. Kids as young

As the industrial revolution emerged, this is when the number of child workers increased significantly. “it indicates that at least 18 percent of these children were employed in 1900” (Trattner 3). At the time, this was a large number of the American workforce despite their age. On the other hand, children whose families were impoverished make up a large majority of the eighteen percent.

Between 1860 and the 1910 the United States population tripled. Because of this, industry was in high demand for skilled and unskilled workers, and the abundance of immigrants helped keep it supplied. This helped the empowerment of bosses of the leading industries the Unites States. Working in a 17th century factory did not have ideal working conditions, on average, a 12 hour work day was not uncommon, as well as child labor. Often time’s, factory owners neglected worker rights and safety in factories leading to accidents, such as chopped off fingers, and other injuries without compensation. If a worker was seriously injured or refused to work they were gladly replaced with another.

Way back in the 19th century everyone who was physically capable worked. They worked in the feilds, in shops and markets, in homes serving, they worked wherever they could. When the industrial revolution brought about new macherinery for old work it was not so easy of an adjustment. The people went along well with the new technology, but the machines and general atmosphere in factories was dreadful. Deaths were extremely common. Child labor was a necessity for the time period, but has since been rightfull illegaliszed.

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 most people hear child labor, their minds automatically think of places such as Africa, China, India, and Mali, but the truth is that even in the United States of America, it was a big problem. Child labor peaked especially between the nineteenth and twentieth century on account of the Industrial Revolution. Employers were in dire need of workers, and parents were in dire need of money to sustain themselves, therefore more and more children were forced to work. Children went out and worked in mines, factories, and farms under dangerous and treacherous conditions. People began disapproving and demanded laws to regulate child labor and a reform movement was started.

In the fall of my seventh grade year at Kent Denver, my grades were not quite as good as my parents wanted. I believed my grades were fine, but my parents obviously thought otherwise. I already had less freedom to do things because I had broken my arm early in the fall. So it came as a shock when my parents restricted the things I could do and put more rules in place around the house. I felt trapped and I wanted to be able to do more things. This got me thinking about freedom.

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.

It is not surprising to point out that the products we purchase daily became cheaper and better due to industrialization. However, I can guarantee you barely know about who actually account for the cheap products that you buy. Generally, people would think the labor force is only made up of adults, especially men. But surprisingly enough, the school-age children are part of the labor force. In fact, 25% of the labor force consisted of children between the ages of ten and fifteen,(Byerly, 43) this percentage will continue to grow unless it can be regulated. The child workers work at various positions, “including working on machines in the factories, selling newspapers on street corners, and as chimney sweeps.”(Nelson) A typical child laborer has to work at least 10 to 14 hours a day for 6 days a week. Which gives them no time to play and go to school.(“The Source-Child Labor”)

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.

In the past, women and men fought for the children of America to liberate them of the burden of harsh work and give them their childhood back. Although we want to believe that child labor is now history, child labor is still significant in our time, all around the world. Today the number of children, ages 5-14, working around the world are estimated to be increasing. Children are constantly working in dangerous working environments that cost them their lives or hamper their ability them to have a basic normal childhood that children have in America. These children miss the opportunity to run and play with friends, have friends their own age, to explore the world around them that they live in every day, have the opportunities to go to school to learn about the world they live in, and expand their imagination. Instead children in some part of world are going to mines and sweatshops to work instead of to school. They are working in dangerous places instead of playing with kids their own ages, and we in America are helping with the growth of child labor.