World Day Against Child Labor 2024 is on Wednesday, June 12, 2024: World day against Child Labor is June 12th, what are you doing to make a difference that day?

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 is World Day Against Child Labor 2024. Home - ILO DWT/ World Day Against Child Labour

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World day against Child Labor is June 12th, what are you doing to make a difference that day?

I donated clothes to the Katrina hurricane relief fund a couple of years ago and I try to volunteer my time at the local community services. I think just getting educated as to what is going on in the rest of the world is a good start.

Have you done anything to stop child labor?

Have you done anything to stop child labor?

Why do you want to impose your prudish American morals and values on other cultures?

Throughout history the predominance of world cultures have regarded teenagers as adults. Up until the twentieth century, puberty is what marked the onset of adulthood in most world cultures.This view was reflected in the minimum age for marriage:

Talmud: Onset of puberty

Roman law: women - age 12 men -- age 14

English law: 1000 years ago -- women - age 12 men -- age 14

American common law 200 years ago: women - age 12 men -- age 14

American law at the turn of the century: women - age 12 men -- age 14

Even in recent America adolescents entered adult roles and received adult responsibilities

John Quincy Adams - 1781: Held an ambassadorial post in Russia -- age 14

Laura Ingalls Wilder - 1882: Taught school – age 15

David Farragut - 1813: Commanded a captured British vessel -- age 12

Physiologically, adolescents are adults

According to doctors, medication dosage is the same as adults at age 12

Buffet prices reflect that restaurant owners recognize the adult eating habits of 12 year olds

Most parents observe that adult body odor, bad breath, etc, begin around age 12

Intellectually, adolescents are adults

The mind's capability for abstract thinking is reached on the average by 11-12

School authorities allow courses requiring abstract reasoning, such as algebra, at age 14

Article on Child Labour in China?

Article on Child Labour in China?

just take out big words and cut it down in size

Child labor seems like a topic that isn't part of our world just because it takes part in other countries such as China . It makes one feel as if it has no effect on our lives just because we don't see it happening. However, child labor is a worldwide problem that affects all people whether you're the child laborer, their employer, or the average every day American who buys the products that they produce. Child labor is part of the reason for China 's economic achievements, and laws prohibiting against it aren't being reinforced resulting in the continuation of such inhumane treatment. On the other hand, because these laws are there, they could possibly cost a child their life because their owners are scared to get caught employing children. These children are forced to work at very young ages due to circumstances such as poverty, sometimes at places where their lives are threatened each day. According to the Human Rights Watch, their work ranges from agriculture, domestics, trade and services, and a few in manufacturing and construction. Some of these children work long hours, and often in dangerous and unhealthy conditions. They would even be denied to go home to their families, while others are abducted and forced into labor. Some are even confined, beaten, and forced into slavery. In some cases like those of bonded child labor, they are forced to work towards a freedom they'll never receive. Children caught in the web of child labor are unable to get an education, and are made to work long hours, while getting little to no pay at all. They're often subject to abuse from their employer, as well as dangerous chemicals and work tools. Every day of their life as a child laborer could be their last, and they're forced to fight to stay alive.

The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that around the world, about 250 million children between the ages of five and fourteen work. Of these 250 million children, 120 million of them work full time, with 61% of them working in Asia, 32% in Africa, and 7% in Latin America . In Asia, with China being a leader in the manufacturing business, it's no surprise that they would house 61% of the 120 million full time child laborers. An article by Ching-Ching Ni of the Los Angeles Times describes how the Chinese government forbids child workers under the age of sixteen, but it is also states that this law isn't enforced very well. It's estimated that as many as 10 million children are working in China 's factories, contributing their part to keep China a low-cost manufacturing powerhouse. The employers of child laborers make as much as they can, for as little as they can, as if a life of a child is considered “little” at all.

Poverty and development have driven a number of rural children away from getting an education and have pushed them to get jobs as child laborers. Robin Munro, a research director at the China Labor Bulletin said, “The rural education system in many parts of the countryside is in a state of virtual collapse. There is a high dropout rate of children under 16. They are not just sitting around doing nothing. It is safe to assume that most are engaged in some kind of work illegally.” In some rural areas, like those from which Jia Wanyun, a young girl who died while working in a factory, were from, “every family has a child working in a factory. Some just 13.” Child labor has become something that seems unavoidable for the average rural family in China . For families with more than one child, it's a given that one of them, the girl, would be forced to work in the factories in order to help pay for their sibling's education. Most of the families are unable to pay for even one child's tuition, and, therefore, that child is forced to find an alternative to going to school. This situation almost always leads them into child labor.

It was stated in an article from the Human Rights Watch that, “Working at rug looms, for example, has left children disabled with eye damage, lung disease, stunted growth, and a susceptibility to arthritis as they grow older. Children making silk thread dip their hands into boiling water that burns and blisters them, breathe smoke and fumes from machinery, handle dead worms that cause infections, and guide twisting threads that cut their fingers”. These harsh conditions that the children are forced to work in because of their poverty situation can cost them more than their hands or fingers, but sometimes their life as well. But that's the chance that their families are willing to take because they know no other way to get by. There aren't many choices to decide on: it's either you have no money and are forced to live homeless and possibly die because of it, you send your child away to work for a small price and have the extra money that they make, or you sell their child completely for a set price like that of bonded child labor. Either way, it's a fight for yo

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