Child Labour
What is child labour
Child labour refers to a work that children are too young to perform or that by origin it is dangerous. Activities that help children develop (such as light homework or interactive activities during holidays) child labour causes harm to the health of the child or the moral development.
In the most negative forms of child labour, child labour can be like slavery, including the sale of children. In some places children are forced to join armed conflicts and take part in them.
Where do they use child labour
Within the most common and serious issues of job labour, there is always child labour even though in Europe, North America, South America and Oceania, child labour is non-existent (at around 2 – 3 %). In parts of certain regions of Asia and Africa children are always working and not in the jobs you would expect. In Palestine, masculine children from 8 years of age are forced to work in the military and practice gun and missile training for 4 hours a day. Another example of extreme working conditions in Nigeria, are Boko Haram, where young children are sent with explosives in places such as markets, supermarkets, and banks. Since the existence of Boko Haram around 2000 children were killed. In 46 years, an average of 43.4 kids are killed per year.
Children are chosen for forced labour because they are vulnerable and less experienced, a child would not understand a difficult working environment, like an adult would. The most common jobs that kids need to do in child labour are agriculture with 112 million or 70% out of the 145 million children working the second place is in the manufactural industry with the 15% of child working and the remaining 5% is splited between fishing, cleaning ecc'.The age variation in Child Labor is 48 % of all those in child labour are in the 5–11 years age bracket, 28% are aged 12–14 years, and 25% fall into the 15–17 years age range.
How does it affect their childhood?
Children involved in Child Labour do not have an easy job, most of them work at night, over long hours, be exposed to physical, psychological problems and work in horrendous conditions. These horrendous conditions are such as underground, underwater, at dangerous heights, heat, cold or in isolated spaces. But the harsh conditions where children must work with extremely dangerous machines and materials some of the materials children need to work with are Uranium, plutonium and nuclear waste some machines that could be considered non-child approved are Guns, Missiles, and grenades. Child Labour has even a psychological impact on the child it can make them more introverse shy and could lead to a long life of being a hermit. Girls and Boys tend to do different jobs in Child Labour. Girls tend to do more of the cleaning and in home jobs on the other hand boys have the more fatigue jobs as working in the camps and producing weapons. Roughly 160 million children were subjected to child labour at the beginning of 2020. This accounts for 1 in 10 children worldwide. Almost half of them is in hazardous work that directly endangers their health and development.
What percentage does what?
The percentage in what job is the most common in child labour are not surprising the most popular work in child labour is Agriculture the reason after this being the most used job is that: 1. It does not require that much skill. Agriculture is a simple job that humans already did when they were primitive humans. 2. Manufacturing another pretty simple job that is the main reason it is the second most common job in child labour. But there is another reason it is this hight up manufacturing in the past used to be made all by children if in the eighteenth century your parents sended you directly to a factory to work when you turn 8. 3. Mining this quite common in fact in Italy and Ticino a frase was made from it when a child is not happy to go somewhere the parent/guardian says to the child:" Non ti mando mica in miniera!" Translated to English "I'm not sending you to the mines!" But going back to the topic it is one of the most used jobs because it is not overly complicated, and it can get a lot of money to the boss. 4.Domestic work. Domestic work is mostly practiced by girls because as I said before boys normally do more manual and dangerous jobs. This is a common job because it does not require skill and anyone could do it. 5.Street working. A lot of children are on the streets begging people who walk for money, food or water even thought this could not be considered a job by some this can be considered a job because sometimes there are people who get all the money that they gathered.
What are the causes?
Several factors contribute to the persistence of child labour, including:
Poverty: If you are poor in a country and you don't find a way to do money and you have a child and you discover there is someone who has an industry and doesn't care about law a lot of people sell their child to the boss of an industry and he can use him as he wants. Even though it is a medieval/Renascence thig it is still common in a lot of part of the world like: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Indonesia.
Lack of education:
In a lot of places there are not a lot of schools and the few that there are use this to their advantage an make the school cost more than what they should at least the parents pay more but the parents of the children who cannot afford the higher prices send their children to work in dangerous places at minimum wages.
Weak Legal protections for the child:
In many countries lawyers are corrupted so the child involved in child labour would have difficulty at finding a lawyer and sometimes if they find one it risks being corrupted or not particularly good at his job.
War zones:
In war zones like Palestine, Ukraine or Guyana children are subjected to war and weapons from when they are children. Many children must work in factories as soon as you turn 5.
What are we doing and how are we doing??
What are we doing??
Us humans we are doing many things mainly:
The International Labour Organization ILO is doing many things. They created rule 132 which is the minimum age to work (even though a lot of countries do not respect that limit). Rule 182 banning the most atrocious types of child labour
The Un is having action by crating the convention rights of a child which includes many rights to not work. Another thing that the Un does is that they try to create free/affordable schools in countries with not a lot of schools (Many of which in the Indian ocean.) Another thing the UN does is to promote the idea that children should not work to countries with low or no limitations
How are we going???
If you think about it as a European, you may say there is no it is all passed these things happened in the 1800's. But unfortunately, you are incorrect in a lot of parts of the world it is still quite common infact 10% of children are in child labour. But this is better than how it was 20 years ago infact in the 2000's the percentage was a shocking 20%. This percentage is not exactly accurate because in Europe, North America, and Oceania the percentage is exceptionally low and even in many parts of Asia and south America it is low but some countries like: India Pakistan and Bangladesh make the percentage go up by a lot.
How is it going in specific countries?
1.In India, a crazy percentage of children are involved in child labour the percentage is around 40%. This is caused by no laws in India that prevent child labour and a hight tax of poverty
2.U.S.A. In the U.S the percentage is of 2.3% that is a very good percentage because the 2.3 % is probably people in oversee territory of the U.S like: Puerto Rico, Guam and Hawaii where opportunities are less, and people have less of a chance.
3. Australia. In Australia it is a strange country because there are no limitations so you would assume that the percentage is very hight (India Level), but no Australia is very low, and the percentage is of around 0.22% that is caused by the accessible life cost and the good amount of jobs.
4.Switzerland.In Switzerland the percentage of children working is of 0.079 % that is a very good percentage that is caused by high pay job and a wealthy job.
5. China. In China, the age limit is of 16 years of age so you would assume the percentage is low but no 16% of children in China are involved in a type of child labour. This is caused by high poverty.
At which age can you start working and why
People start working at different ages in different countries in the less developed countries the suggested age to start working is always lower. The legal age that people should start working variates as I said before it is because of multiple reason (mainly: Religion, Anarchy, and many others). I am going to illustrate many examples:
1.The U.S.A (United states of America) is the most powerful and rich country in the world, so I decided to put them as my first example in the U.S.A the national age limit for working is 16 years of age but it can be reduced in fact 57% of 14 years old in the us already have a part-time job. In the U.S. you can start being a football coach in an Orlando college at only 12 years old!!!!
2.Switzerland is another country in the western atmosphere/world, so they have the same age of 16 years but unlike the U.S.A no job can be executed before the age of sixteen.
3.India is the most populous country in the world but if you're a child in a poor family it's not the best place to be because there are no actual limitations so your child could work when he is 24 months old, and the government would not even try to oppose that. There are many explanations for this horrendous act made by the Indian government the first reason is that in India there are around 1.5 billion people so monitoring all of them so in the end people would do what they want
4.Italy is the direct neighbour to the south of our nation Switzerland and their age limit to work is very different in Italy you can start working at 14 years of age even thought a big majority of jobs don't allow you to work if you're not 16.
5.Niger is a country in central Africa where there are big separatist parties that want their own independence even though the limit of age to work is 15 years of age many people don't respect that age limit.
AGE DISCRIMINATION
Age discrimination happens when a person of a certain age gets discriminated for their age and that can make many junior workers feel in a state of depression and sadness in the workplace or it could be that the person is treated better than the others for his/her age. Discrimination can occur when the victim and the person who inflicted the discrimination are both over 40. The law forbids discrimination in any aspect of employment, hiring, firing, pay getting higher or lower, job engagements, promotions, training, benefits, and any other condition that could put in advantage or disadvantage the worker.
EXAMPLES:
Imagine a person that is working at a coffee shop, and he is 20 years old, but his colleague is 19 and the one that is 20 years old gets 19$ per day and the other one gets 3$ more and the one that is 20 says it's not fair and then the boss of the coffee shop decides to fire him. Another one is: Your employer refuses to allow you to do a training course because she thinks you are 'too old' but allows younger colleagues to do the training. Both 2 scenarios show that the situation is not fair and that it makes others feel excluded and it can result in mobbing* at work.