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Kyle Anderson

Monosmith

English 11 B

15 December 2009

Small People, Big Problems

Child labor existed since ancient times working for families and still exist today.

According to David Brody, child labor is the employment of children as wage earners. Child

labor is our past, present, and our future.

According to Brody of world book, in 1832 40% of all factory workers in New England

were seven to sixteen years old, and in 1890 nearly 20% of all U.S. children were employed full

time. The number of children peaked in the early decades of the 1900’s. Mines, glass factories,

agriculture, canneries, home industries, and as newsboys, messengers, bootblacks, and peddlers

employed children on large numbers. Children between 7 and 12 made up 1/3 of all workforces

in the U.S. factories in the early 1800’s. By the end of the 1800’s nearly 1/5 of American

children 10 to 16 were employed (“Child”)

In 1836 the first effective step towards governing the education of children is when

Massachusetts adopted a law prohibiting employing any children under 15 who receive less than

three months of schooling the previous year. In 1916 congress passed a law setting 14 as the

minimum age for industries producing nonagricultural goods for commerce or export. In 1949

the Fair Labor Standards Act set the minimum age of jobs that are not judged hazardous to 16,

and hazardous ones to 18. There are no minimum age limits for nonhazardous agriculture after

school hours or vacation by the secretary of labor. Pennsylvania became the first state to regulate

age levels of child employment in silk, cotton, or woolen mills in 1848 by making 12 the

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minimum age level. Several states later adopted a labor workday for children under 12 in 1853.

After the American civil war, child labor increased greatly in industries when the Industrial

expansion called forth a demand for workers (“Child”).

The first government to pass and regulate a child labor law was the British Parliament in

1802. Germany followed suit in 1839. The U.S. congress passed its first federal child labor law

in 1916. The Keating- Owen child labor act set standards for hiring children. It set the minimum

age for working mines and quarries at 16, and other work at 14, with 8 hour days, and a 48 hour

week with no night work for children under 16 (Brody). The only children exempt from these

laws are actors and performers on radio, television and motion pictures, children of migratory

workers, children working as newspaper delivery, sales personal, and as part-time workers at

home (child).

The fight for child labor right started in 1832 and the last act was in place in 1938. In

1932 New England unions such as the New England Association of farmers, mechanics, and

other working men condemn child labor. Early trade unions propose state minimum age laws

in1836. National trades’ union convention recommended states establish minimum age for

factory work in 1936. The first state child labor law was passed in 1836. In 1842 states began

limiting children’s workdays. Labor movements urge minimum age laws in 1876. Also in 1876

the Working men’s party proposes a banning of employment to children14 and under. The newly

formed American federation of labor passes a resolution trying to ban children under 14 from all

gainful employment in1881. In 1883 New York labor movement’s sponsored legislation

prohibiting cigar making intements where thousands of children worked the trade. Democrats

adopted recommendations to ban factory employment for children under 15 in 1892. In 1904 a

national campaign for federal child labor law reform begins. In 1916 new federal law sanctions

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state violations. It prohibits movement of goods across state lines if minimum age laws are

violated, it was declared unconstitutional in1918. Congress passed an amendment in 1924 giving

federal government authority to regulate child labor, there wasn’t enough stated to ratify it. In

1936 the United States government declared that it would not purchase goods made by under

aged children. In 1937 the second attempt to gain federal regulation falls short of necessary votes

needed. The sugar act of1937 imposed laws on sugar beet growers if they hired child workers.

The Fair Labor Standards Act achieved regulation of child labor by federal law in 1938 (Labor).

There are still children in child labor around the world; these are just a few interesting

facts about them. About ½ of all child labors are in Asia, 1/3 in Africa and 1/5 in Latin America

according to a 1997 UNICEF report. Many of the child workers work in iron and coal mines,

shipyards, match factories, and other industries. These children have poor health and most, if not

all, are dead before they are 30. Hazardous jobs as declared by the U.S. Secretary of Labor are

banned to children under the age of 18, including any types of mining, logging, saw mills, brick

manufacturing, excavation, operating power driven machinery, slaughterhouse and meatpacking,

and working with radioactive and explosive materials all told by Kathlyn Gay. The top three

countries where child labor occurs the most as reported by Iowa University are Asia with 60%,

Africa with 23% and Carrabian with 8% (“What”).

Kathlyn Gay has found some minors who were or is currently child laborers. The most

famous child laborer escaped and activist against child labor is Iqbal Masih. Iqbal Masih was

force into virtual servitude at a carpet factory because his parents had to pay off a debt to the

employer. He managed to escape when he was ten and began speaking against child labor. Iqbal

won many awards like the Reebok’s Youth in Action award. He was shot and killed in 1995

near his grandparents’ home by who was believed was the carpet mafia, Dhiraj K. C. which as

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given to him by his employer was posted by child workers in Nepal on the internet. When he was

seven, he became a live-in worker because his mom and one of his sisters died. His dad drinks.

He doesn’t know his family name and went to Kathmandu with one of his sisters, where they

went to work for a medical company. They were physically and mentally abused according to

Chin. These boys are just tow out of millions of child laborers.

There are organizations helping children being freed from slavery. UNICEF is one of

those organizations which provide an allowance for child laborers to get something to eat and to

get an education. Children news service organized to train children and teenagers nationwide to

be reporters and editors. There are others organizations trying to help children in labor like

NCIC, ILO, Free the Children, and BLLK, and others.

Children work in many different areas of industries. Gold and Emeralds are mined in

Columbia, Charcoal in Brazil and El Salvador, Chrome in Zimbabwe, diamonds in South Africa,

and coal in Mongolia. In hotels, restaurants, and retail, low pay is the norm, payment to

employers leads to debt bondage and prostitution. Many children, especially girls, work in

Domestic services, some starting at five or six years old, and is linked to child trafficking, and

victims can be abused physically, emotionally, and sometimes even sexually. Children six or

seven years old break up rocks, wash, serve and carry on. Nine year old children underground

settings explosives and carry loads. Fifteen million children are directly involved in

manufacturing goods for export including carpets from India, Pakistan and Egypt; clothes in

Bangladesh; footwear in India and Philippines; soccer balls and surgical instruments from

Pakistan/ glass and bricks from India; and fireworks from China, Dominican Republic, El

Salvador, Guatemala, India, and Peru. Seventy percent of all child labor occurs in agriculture,

fishing, hunting, and forestry. Kids are found picking bananas in Ecuador, cotton in Egypt and

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Benin, cut flowers in Columbia, oranges in Brazil, Cocoa in the Ivory Coast, tea in Argentina

and fruits and vegetables in the United States. Children face long hours and extreme

temperatures, little or no pay, inadequate food, water, and sanitation (“What”). Child labor still

exists in the world today, even though strides have been made to stop it. I believe that we will

never be able to stop child labor completely, just make it harder to do, for child labor is past,

present, and future.