Child Labor: Causes and Consequences

For millions of children there is no time to be a child. Work fills the day. 250 millions of the world's, 2 billion children work. Millions of them produce goods for U.S. consumers. Children work to help their families, to pay for school, to survive. Working children are beginning to organize. They and their advocates demand freedom from exploitation, and the opportunity to develop their full potential.

The contribution of a child's income or labour at home can move a family from hunger to bare sufficiency. Parents of child workers are often unemployed and desperate for a secure job and income. Yet it is often their children who are offered jobs. Because; children are cheaper, and easier to use. Economic development that assures adults a living wage would reduce the need for child labour. Education is the most important factor in ending abusive forms of child labour. Misplaced government priorities and cuts in social spending forced by international lending institutions means diminished support for education. Availability, quality and relevance of education suffer as a result. Worldwide some 140 million primary age children are not enrolled in school. School fees sometimes $6-10 per month often force children to work, while inflexible classroom schedules demand that they choose between work and school. The children weaving carpets develop muscular deformities and respiratory infections from fibre and chemical inhalation. Long hours, regimentation, and sometimes physical and psychological abuse often earns them less than 1% of the eventual retail price. In South Asia a needy family "exchanges" their 8-year old child for a cash loan. The moneylender puts the child into bonded labour until the debt is paid. A $10 loan can ensnare a child for life as daily expenses and work errors count against her pennies-a-day income. 20-hour days lead to physical and mental injury, and social deprivation. Often children work with family members to produce food for their own consumption. A growing number work in the export oriented commercial agricultural sector, demanding and dangerous. As many as 100,000, usually children of migrant workers labour illegally in U.S. agriculture. The Fresno Bee Millions of children is a ”hidden” worker, kept by wealthy families as domestic servants. These children 90% young girls often are unpaid except for room and board. A day's work for a child as young as 5 years old can average 15-18 hours, and include sexual and emotional abuse. Millions of youth (girls and boys) are lured to urban centres' sex trade for abuse by local customers or foreigners almost always men. As the threat of AIDS looms, younger and younger children are sought; sometimes the child is as young as 7 years old. In the U.S., some 100,000 children are involved in prostitution. Some 200,000 children serve as soldiers. Easily trainable and eager to please adult commanders, these children will face a lifetime of unlearning the arts of war if other educational experiences are even available.