Government Restrictions on Child Labor Essay

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

On the other hand, the opposing side believes that child labor is necessary in developing countries. Some believe that developing countries need child labor to survive and that parents need their children to work so that they can afford an education and food. Gary Weiner explains, “Children who work long hours either get an inferior education, or none at all, and grow up without the necessary skills and education that will

In the 21st century, our whole economy is depended upon technology. However, from the end of the Civil War and into the early 1900s, the economy was industrializing. However, industrialization created a larger need for larger workforce. The working conditions changed, but it often caused hardships for workers. As a result, the government, groups and individuals attempt to solve many problems such as low wages, child labor, and unsafe working conditions through the passing of laws and workers’ union.

By 1910, there were just about two million working children in America. They were required to work incredibly long days, somewhere from 18 to 20 hours a day, from dusk ‘til dawn. These kids worked to help their families, for their livelihoods, and often lived in places owned by the factories they worked for. Oftentimes, they were paid with overpriced and inflated goods from the company, which made them increasingly more dependent on their employers.1 Many physical difficulties were the norm.

“Each year, as many as 2.7 million healthy years of life are lost due to child labor.” Imagine that you are being held as a slave and forced to do dangerous labor as a child. Countless people are being held captive and are being forced to do perilous things, sweating their lives away, not taking breaks, and being put in adult like situations. In fact right now there are “15-20 million children working as slaves.” Although it provides children and families with money, and possibly something to learn from, adolescents should not be enslaved or forced to do labor because it is very dangerous and can damage a minor for the rest of their life.

In the early 1900’s many young children had to work in factories and mills to help provide for their families. These children often died due to exhaustion and malnutrition. I do not feel that children were an acceptable source of labor, but I think I can understand why some kids had to work and why some employers would hire them. Some families may have not been able to afford to send their children to school because the money their kids made from working was important part of their families income. It probably would have been a hard decision for parents to send their children to work because they knew the bad work conditions of factories and mills. Employers would have hired children because they did have to pay them as much as adults at the

It was not rare to find kids working for long days and hours in mills or factories or other places of trade. It was called child labor. Many families lived off of the income that their kids brought home every day. Concern from the public about the fact that these kids had to work so much and so hard began to rise. Supporters for child labor laws proved that children who worked such long days, such as 26-27 hours a week, were always rundown, depressed, and deprived of real education, fresh air, and time to play with friends and act like children. They also were concerned about the physical risks that these kids could have. Kids in factories had high accident rates. Some states passed laws limiting child labor, but these states had restrictions that held an economic drawback.

During the Industrial Revolution employers thought that it was an excellent idea to show children how it feels to work and what labor is, and mimic adults, and earn money to survive. However, Child labor in the mines was extremely dangerous and deadly. Children deserve an education and not have their lives at risk by working.

In conclusion there aren’t many child labor issues in America they are mainly in South America, Asia, China, and India. I have learned a lot about child labor throughout this research.

By implementing this right, this will lead to economic development, demolishment of poverty and a stronger more inclusive population. Allowing youth to be educated will pull them out of poverty, allowing them to get jobs, while letting the society work towards becoming more industrialized and modern (Saleem, 2014). Although this article relates only to Pakistan, this idea of introducing education has the same impacts in most developing countries. By making education a requirement in developing countries, it can boost economic growth, build the economy and allow people to get high paying jobs. In contrast, by introducing education, this slowly eradicates poverty as well as increases these economic factors.

Charles Henderson, who is head of socially responsible investment research at Aegon, once stated that "What is socially and ethically acceptable for investors is changing all the time.” Furthermore, the best way to define the ethic is a system of moral principles where people follow specific rules and regulation. Even though our code of conduct basis for humanity does not allow one employee to enslave or forced a child to do labor work, Child-labor has become one of the aspect of the ethics from stock market investing. Therefore to create more understanding of how child-labor is being used in our modern world, this paper will briefly discuss on the components such as occurrences of child labor from the history, use of it in the present era, and motives behind its brutal act.

Child labor is work for children, but also harmful to their growth physically, mentally or emotionally. Children were forced to work because of their family’s extremely poor condition where they may be needed to drop out of school. In most kinds of

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.

"Please, sir," replied Oliver, "I want some more." No one will ever forget the simple plea made by the poor hungry little orphan named Oliver Twist. Nobody will be able to omit from his mind the painful blows that Oliver suffered. Nor will anyone cease to recall what it felt like to be young and helpless in a much bigger and stronger world. In an effort to bring the ostracized poverty situation of so many children to the public's attention, Charles Dickens wrote an unforgettable book to touch the hearts of millions. Whether he knew it then or not, he was also bringing a new connotation and worldwide innuendo to the term "child labor".