We all like to wear the newest, most fashionable clothes for a cheap price. What we fail to think about while purchasing these items is how they made it to the store in the first place; someone had to make the clothes you are wearing, but who? After some research, I found our cheap fashion is coming from working children from all over the world. Receiving clothes from foreign countries like Brazil and many more is doing more harm than good to the working children. The working conditions for these children should be safer. The practice has caused people to buy cheap fashion without realizing the consequence for the children who made it.
Before I began researching how child labor runs in the common fashion business, I wanted to know if child
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Of the latter, 126 million were engaged in hazardous work. The corresponding figures for the narrower age group of five to fourteen-year-olds are 191 million economically active children, 166 million child laborers, and 74 million children in hazardous work. The decline was much greater for those engaged in hazardous work: by twenty-six percent for the 5-17 age group and thirty-three percent for five to fourteen-year-olds. (UN Child Labor)
Looking at the statistics it is easy to determine child labor is not something that went away over time. Not only is the number of children in child labor at an all-time high, the children are also younger than ever. This alone is a valid reason for why working conditions for children should be made safer rather than getting rid of it as a whole. However if the number of working children were to have decreased over the past twenty-seven years, we can make the argument that child labor is not a necessity. Imagine how much damage would be done to the countries that support child labor and the families these children contribute to if their jobs were outlawed. Ethics and morals are different everywhere, just because Americans do not agree with how a business is run it should not mean that we get rid of it. Children have been working for too long for it
This is why we should boycotted and there should not be child labor. To begin with child labor is very dangerous to the kids. In the story Why Are Your Clothes So Cheap by Kristin and Gini and they states “ A child's physical or mental well being is in danger” (Kristin and Gini 112). “The factory went up into flames”
“ In 1900, 18 percent of all American workers were under the age of 16.”(Foner) Child labor is a terrible thing that children have to go through. Although this was not considered a problem because of how normal it was.(Foner.). But due to the work of investigative journalist children today no longer have to worry about working in these dangerous environments.
Child labor was a directly benefited for factories owners and industrialists. Children were cheap and could fit more in the workplace. Therefore, it cost less and required less space for the work to take place Even though laws were passed in the 1900s, but it did not stop mistreatment and there are also laws that were rejected a few times. Since laws were not enforced enough kids are still involved being child labor that is dangerous to their body and mental health. The world didn’t do anything even though they saw the news on how dangerous it is for kids to work at a young age about child labor today.
Just like many manufacturers in the counterfeit industry, many people in high-end fashion utilize factories across the world to make their items in a fast and inexpensive way. Many of the factories being used to produce these luxury items are based in China, where child labor is quite popular. Many of the employees work over 8 hours a day for 7 days a week and on average make around USD $2 per hour (Kavoussi). The more demanding the fashion industry becomes, the higher the need for factory workers goes, this could lead to an increase of child labor and human trafficking in order to meet the needs for the amount of work that must be done at the factory. Because many families are only allowed one child in many parts of China, girls will often be sold or abandoned by their own families, and will be forced to work in these factories in order to support
In conclusion, children are being put at risk by working in large factories and people should not buy products made by them because of the horrible and dangerous working conditions, the decreased pay, and being deprived from their childhood. Having a child work a such a young age would put their whole life at risk. It is not a good idea at all to make children work so that another child in the United States can have
This source supports my argument by providing text and images that depict the harsh conditions that children were forced to work in for an vast period of time. The images in this source illustrate the physical damage that the working conditions had on children and how many fell ill or even died as a result. This source contains a lot of statistics regarding the ages of children who worked in factories and how much child labor increased over time. This source not only discusses the difficult circumstances that children endured factories, but in other industries as well such as coal mines. This source also contains information about the
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:
There have been many major reform movements about child labor since the Industrial Revolution. One of the most important major reforms is the age limit in child labor. During the Industrial Revolution, around 18 percent of American workers were under the age of 16; however, today it’s illegal to employ children under the age of 15 at most workplaces. This is a drastic change due to the fact that young children have been working ever since the start of America. Another important major reform movement is maximum hours for young workers.
At the beginning of the industrial revolution in America, laws that prevented children from working was not established, and this allowed businesses to utilized children as an inexpensive form of labor. By the 1900s there were over one million children working in the labor force. Most of those young workers were from a poor or immigrant family. They were put to work at an early age usually between five to sixteen years old. In the article, “The History of Child Labor During the American Industrial Revolution” by Jennifer Wagner, discusses about how most of these youngsters worked in unsafe conditions in:
Even though child labor is still a problem today the number of children in child labor has decreased over the past few decades. Believe it or not, once there was a time when the United States had child labor going on. In 1870, 750,000 kids in America were in child labor. Then in 1938, Child Labor had stopped in most parts of the US. However outside of the United States, child labor is still a worldwide problem. 11 percent of the children are still stuck in child labor today. During the Industrial Revolution is when the numbers of children in child labor got extremely
There are million of working children all around the world, for example, “Asia has the highest incidence of child labor (152.5 million), followed by Africa (80 million) and Latin America (17.5 million). Measured in proportional terms approximately 40 percent of African children work, while 20 percent of children work in Asia and Latin America respectively.” (Palley) ”The worldwide population of children under fourteen who work full-time is thought to exceed 200 million”. Obviously if most children participate in child labor, then there needs to be more laws regulating it and a better way of enforcing the laws. “The general minimum age was at the first 14 years, later raised to 15, and 16 for specific dangerous environments and night work”(. There are laws on the general age someone can be to work, but there are still many children who work.
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.
In my research I will do a survey will include some questions about 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.
Not true. Though our intentions mean well, we cannot lose our head every time a story involving a helpless child in an uncaring society reaches the news. We must not, in our naiveness and absence of the facts, be brainwashed to believe that ending "child labor" will solve anything. For what Greene forgets to include in her definition is the one element that makes the problem impossible to deal with. For some children, "child labor," with all its abuses and exploitations, is all that stands between life and death. As much as the world's public is now aware of all the corruption behind the productivity of big international corporations, we must also come to realize the other side of the argument. The prohibition of child labor in its entirety is not the solution. It is neither possible nor probable. As long as poverty exists, children will work to stay alive. The complete and utter abolishment of child labor by "more developed countries" may hurt the poverty-stricken children of "less developed countries" more than if absolutely nothing was done.