The Rise Of Child Labor

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.

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

Child labor is a serious problem that affects children from third-world countries all over the world. These children are exploited by multinational corporations ,for their cheap labor all over the world. People, then buy products that come at a cheaper price, from these multinational corporations.These children are often overworked and treated unfairly. People need to stop buying items from countries that endorse child labor.

Child labor is historically defined as “work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development” (Hansan, 2013). Legally, to be considered child labor, work must involve at least one of the following characteristics:

Child labor was a cruel and unfair way of using children in unnecessary situations. It was debated for a countless number of years whether child labor was a social problem or a political problem. Children were responsible for completing very dangerous, rigorous, and demanding jobs. Most jobs for the children were completed in factories, farms, and coal mines. Subsequently, the working conditions for the children were not healthy, and it led to life threatening situations. Many would get seriously injured or killed. Some worked until exhaustion and fell asleep on the job, and would experience harsh consequences. Generally speaking, child labor drastically changed the way owners ran their businesses during the Industrial Revolution. The ruthless ways of child labor were never changed for the better until different Acts and Laws were put into place. People were concerned with the social and physical wellbeing of working children in Britain during the Industrial Revolution.

Child labor generally involves agricultural or industrial work, often putting young children in very dangerous working conditions. So that’s problably why there is still child labor is other countries and not in the U.S. United states knows is not good to have kids working like that.

Throughout the American Industrial Revolution, child labor in industries such as textiles, agriculture, mining, manufacturing, laboring, street work, and domestic work was endemic in the United States. Several factors, including mechanization, urbanization, industrialization, poverty, labor shortages, and lack of regulation were the primary causes for this increase in child labor. Children, as young as three years old, worked from sunrise to sunset in factories, mines, fields, and mills where conditions were excruciating. The arduous work resulted in myriad deleterious effects, namely, afflictive injuries, pitiful deaths, and bleak futures. In order to curtail the abusive conditions, numerous people championed the rights of child laborers and ultimately achieved their concordant goal of gaining federal regulation of minimum employment ages, permissible types of jobs, and duration of work hours for youths.

According to International Labour Organization, child labor is defined as “work that deprives children of their childhood,

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.

If it wasn’t in farms, then it was out in the hot sun of the fields, or even in factories. Kids were meant to work in their family’s farm, but when it was time to send them to work in other farmer’s farm it was to do so. Working in agriculture was difficult with the extreme temperatures. For some children high temperatures was normal because of how they were used to being out working. Others that worked in factories sometimes dealt with carrying heavy equipment and dangerous tools. Many factories had to do with fire and toxins that many worked around of. Being in factories they were useful due to their size, they’d fit anywhere that adults couldn’t reach into. They were easier to control for how young they were and even though they managed to do most of the work, they were paid less than the adults. All minors had long hours to work every day for such little pay. Sometimes hours reached at least ten to fourteen and didn’t give them much break that was supposed

They had worked long hours for ridiculous wages. Were unable to enjoy their childhood due to labour. Most importantly many children died while working in the industrial revolution. With bigger, more powerful machines, the danger of labour was increased that much more. The amount of deaths, and injuries of the youth in the workforce lead to child labour laws.

(Fried, 2014) It took several attempts along with many years of protesting in order for society to recognize that this issue was harming children rather than improving their productivity. Initially, Britain was the first country to begin implementing child labor regulations, but wasn’t until the U.S first passed the child labor bill in 1916 that change started to occur. The bill was designed to lessen the workload and shorten the hours that children were required to work. Early drafts of the bill did not quite eliminate the issue of overworking children, but instead provided any opportunity for others to witness to damage that was being done.

I am lucky enough to come from family where the necessities are provided without fail and education is never a question. For this reason, I’m particularly interested in researching the general topic of child labor; as child laborers have and continue to live a life that starkly contrasts mine and that I can’t yet understand. I chose to research the conditions of child labor in the U.S. during the Industrial Revolution versus present day, as well as the reforms/movements responsible for the positive or negative development of child labor ( again, from the Industrial Revolution to present day in U.S.). Within this area of research, I will also be exploring the juxtaposition of perspectives regarding child labor that influenced these reforms/movements: including

Child Labor is not an isolated problem. The phenomenon of child labor is an effect of economic discrimination. In different parts of the world, at different stages of histories, laboring of child has been a part of economic life. More than 200 million children worldwide, some are as young as 4 and 5