Child Lbor: Pain and Resistance
CHILD LABOR: PAIN AND RESISTANCE
By Bob Peterson
When Nirmala was eight her father took her to work as a weaver in a carpet factory near Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. The family needed money, she said.
Nepali children like Nirmala start work at 6:00 in the morning and work late into the night, sometimes 16 hours a day. They work in ‘factories’ the size of a classroom: a typical factory holds 18 huge weaving looms. Five children work at each loom, tying knots in carpets. The lighting is poor and with no windows, ventilation is bad. There are no bathrooms. Most of the children eat only twice a day and are almost always hungry. Many of them sleep in the factory, crowded into small rooms. This ‘room and board’ is all the ‘payment’ many of the child workers get.
The work is painful: the children’s hands often get numb after hours of moving their fingers between the stiff threads. The cramped spaces, long hours, poor nutrition, lack of air, and wool dust cause sore backs and illness. Under these conditions, diseases like tuberculosis* can spread quickly from worker to worker.
Carpets are key to Nepal’s economy. In 1993, carpets made up more than half – 60% of all the money the country made through trading products with other countries.
A year later, however, things changed. Some Europeans organizing against child labor convinced a German tv program to do an expose on the bad conditions of Nepal’s child weavers. Many people in Europe were shocked at what they saw, and stopped buying Nepali carpets. In response to the drop in carpet sales, the Nepali government and carpet factory owners kicked many of the child workers out of the factories. Some children were able to attend special schools set up for former child workers. Nirmala was one of these lucky ones: she delighted in the chance to spend her days learning, playing soccer, and eating nutritious meals instead of working hard at a loom in the semi-darkness. But other children were much less fortunate. Their families still needed money to survive. Many continued sneaking into their old factories at night, or found other jobs.
According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), throughout the world 120 million children between the ages of five and fourteen work full-time. If children who work part-time are included, the number more than doubles to 250 million. It does not include children working as servants in people’s homes. Getting exact figures is difficult in some countries. Some people say that the ILO estimate is too high because it includes children who voluntarily work on their parent’s farms or at home. But regardless of the exact number, it is clear that tens of millions of children often work 12 hours a day without a break, sometimes even longer.
DEFINING CHILD LABOR:
People who work with the United Nations and ILO call it ‘child labor’ when one of three things happens: work is done full-time by children under the age of 15, work prevents children from attending school and children work at jobs that are dangerous or hazardous to their physical, mental or emotional health. This means that if a child does light work or works after school it’s not child labor. Likewise, helping out with the family farm or business is not included in child labor, unless it means the child does not get the chance to have a formal education.
Child laborers stitch soccer balls in Pakistan, sew shirts in Guatemala, pick flowers in Colombia, make carpets in Nepal, polish gem stones in Thailand, assemble toys in China, and sew shoes in Indonesia. Often these children work for pennies a day. Large numbers of them never learn to read and write. Many are often exposed to dangers such as harsh temperatures, sharp tools, heavy loads, and poisonous chemicals. Many child workers are robbed of any real chance to play, have fun, and just be around other family members.
One of the main reasons child labor exists is poverty. Many families are so poor that they must have their children work so that the family does not starve. (child labor actually causes more poverty: when a child gets a job, it takes that same job away from an adult. Any adults who still want to do that work will have to compete with children, who work for much less money).
But poor families are not to blame for child labor, any more than they are to blame for poverty. For example, if there are not jobs that pay enough money to support a family, it’s not the fault of poor people who do not have jobs. The way the world of business is set up pushes companies to be almost only concerned with making money, increasing their profits. These companies want to pay workers as little as possible. And of all workers, children are often the very cheapest, the easiest to scare, and the least likely to organize or fight back. In many nations, laws against child labor are often ignored, or simply do not exist. Many nations try to get businesses to move to their country by bragging about how low wages are.
CHILD LABOR IN THE UNITED STATES:
Some people think that child labor is a problem only in the countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America**- and that in the United States it only happened long ago. It’s true that in the 1800s and early 1900s, millions of U.S. children worked in mines, textile mills and other factories, and in homes making things to sell. These children often suffered from accidents and diseases and were not able to go to school.
Many people worked to end child labor in the United States. For example, Lewis Hine took photographs of children working. His photos gave many people their first look at child workers. Also labor organizer Mother Jones, and social activist Helen Keller, protested against child labor. Demonstrations against child labor often drew thousands of protesters. By 1914, almost every state had a law saying that no child under 12 could go to work.
In 1916, Congress finally passed a law saying
that no product made by children under 14 in factories or under 16 in mines could travel from one state to another. But owners complained, and the U.S. Supreme Court threw out the law. It wasn’t until 1938 that Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act. One thing this law did was allow children of 14 or 15 to work only outside of school hours, and only in certain jobs. But this law didn’t apply to children doing farm work.
Decades later there is still child labor in the United States. In 1988, researchers at one university found that more than 290,000 children were working in the United States – many illegally. Most of them worked in clothing factories or picking fruits and vegetables in farm fields. People continue to organize more protests to get new laws passed and to make sure that existing laws are enforced. Many people want changes so that children are not mistreated in fields, factories, or fast food restaurants. Organizers also work to form unions and to demand rights and better pay for adult workers, so parents don’t need to send their children to work.
MOVEMENTS TO END CHILD LABOR:
People are organizing to abolish child labor around the world, too. Some child workers themselves are organizing to get out of slave-like conditions. Perhaps the most famous was Iqbal Masih, the Pakistani child who escaped from where he was forced to work and became an organizer and speaker against child labor. Tragically, he was murdered.
In Brazil some of the 9 million street children have organized the ‘National Movement of Street Children’ and have demanded an end to sexual abuse, police brutality, and economic exploitation. In one of their newsletters they asked, “Who stole my right to live a child’s life?”
In India, a group started the RUGMARK campaign to ensure that carpets and rugs from South Asia are made without child labor.
RUGMARK representatives check carpet manufacturers to make sure they are not using child labor. If they aren’t, then the RUGMARK people put a special RUGMARK label on the carpets, letting buyers know (above).
In Canada, Craig Kielburger (while still in junior high) became angry at how children were forced to work in Pakistan and started the ‘Free the Children’ organization to help organize children to demand an end to child labor. Children around the world have set up Free the Children chapters.
In the United States, a number of organizations – including the National Labor Committee, Campaign for Labor Rights, Sweatshop Watch and Global Exchange – have demanded an end to sweatshops and to the exploitation of children.
Sweatshop Watch
In Los Angeles, high school students organized against child-made soccer balls and lobbied the school board to adopt a policy against buying them. At universities across the country, students have demanded that their schools sign agreements that would stop the buying of products made by child labor or by adults who work in sweatshops***.
PROBLEMS TO THINK ABOUT:
Sometimes when people try to make things better, they actually make them worse. One concern is that, as in Nepal, stopping child labor in one industry can mean that some families will become even poorer. For families barely surviving even with their children working, this could be a disaster. Children might keep working in secret or find other types of jobs even more dangerous than factory or farm work, like prostitution.
The problem of child labor will not end completely through consumer boycotts**** or passing laws. Those are important steps, but ultimately child labor will end only when world poverty ends. The main reason children work is that their families are in desperate need of money, just to survive. Unless and until adults earn enough money at their jobs (and even have jobs) to support an entire family, families will be pressured to send their children off to work. It’s for that reason people opposed to child labor need to learn about the roots of world poverty and inequality and help work to end those problems as well.
*tuberculosis - an infection, primarily in the lungs caused by bacteria called Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It is spread usually from person to person by breathing infected air during close contact..
**Latin America – a region of the world where Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French are primarily spoken.
***sweatshops – any working environment considered to be unacceptably difficult or dangerous.
****boycott - to combine in abstaining from, or preventing dealings with, as a means of intimidation or coercion a business, person, etc.
QUESTIONS:
1) What does ILO stand for and what is it?
2) What is the definition of child labour according to the ILO & the UN? (3 conditions)
3) How does child labour increase profits for companies?
4) Why do multinational corporations target poor nations to implement child labour?
5) Why was farm work excluded from early American child labour protection laws?
6) “Sometimes when people try to make things better, they actually make things worse.” Explain this statement.
7) The main reason for child labour is poverty. How does child labour increase poverty throughout the world? Explain.