According to online Wikipedia, child labor is the employment of children under an age determined by law or custom. Child labor is very common, and can be factory work, mining or quarrying, agriculture, helping in the parents' business, having one's own small business (for example selling food or apparels), or doing odd jobs. Based on the report of International Labor Organization, there are estimated 218 million children aged 5 to 17 in child labors worldwide. For me, the employment of child labor is a brutal violation of fundamental human rights and worker’s rights by torturing the children. The children mostly work in long hours, often in dangerous and unhealthy conditions, and are exposed to lasting physical and psychological harm. Not to mention, their work are grueling and harsh. The child agricultural workers, which constitute 69% of all child labor, frequently work for long hours in scorching heat, haul heavy loads of produce, are exposed to toxic pesticides, and suffer high rates of injury from sharp knives and other dangerous tools. And the children making silk thread in India, for example, dip their hands into boiling water that burns and blisters them, breath smoke and fumes from machinery, handle dead worms that cause infections, and guide twisting threads that cut their fingers. The children will also get a severe physical punishment if they get things wrong, rest awhile, moan or even cry. To obtain a state of well-being ness both physically and mentally with no excessive pressure are the basic right of even every single person. And it is the right of every worker is to have a working time and proper wage. So, based on that, the avocation of child labor breaks the basic human right and worker’s rights.
The second reason of my disagreement with the employment of child labor is that because it transgresses the children’s right for a bright future. Denied an education and a normal childhood, some children are confined and beaten, reduced to slavery. In many places, children who work for too many hours and too many days, for too little, or sometimes no pay, are becoming a subject often to physical abuse. Some are denied freedom of movement—the right to leave the workplace and go home to their families. Some are abducted and forced to work. The human rights abuses in these practices are clear and acute. For example, children as young as 11 go to work for up to 20 hours a day in sweatshops making items for US companies, such as Hanes, Wal-mart, and Target while they only get paid as little as 6 and a half cents per item. Big Bill Haywood, a leading labor organizer and leader of the Western Federation of Miners and a founding member and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World famously claimed "the worst thief is he who steals the playtime of children!" Indeed, by such a long working duration, how can the children develop normally and get formal education? A normal and happy childhood and formal education are the basic right of every single child because those are the factors that will have major contribution for their development. It is clear now that such practices deny the children’s right for a settled forthcoming life.
The second reason of my disagreement with the employment of child labor is that because it transgresses the children’s right for a bright future. Denied an education and a normal childhood, some children are confined and beaten, reduced to slavery. In many places, children who work for too many hours and too many days, for too little, or sometimes no pay, are becoming a subject often to physical abuse. Some are denied freedom of movement—the right to leave the workplace and go home to their families. Some are abducted and forced to work. The human rights abuses in these practices are clear and acute. For example, children as young as 11 go to work for up to 20 hours a day in sweatshops making items for US companies, such as Hanes, Wal-mart, and Target while they only get paid as little as 6 and a half cents per item. Big Bill Haywood, a leading labor organizer and leader of the Western Federation of Miners and a founding member and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World famously claimed "the worst thief is he who steals the playtime of children!" Indeed, by such a long working duration, how can the children develop normally and get formal education? A normal and happy childhood and formal education are the basic right of every single child because those are the factors that will have major contribution for their development. It is clear now that such practices deny the children’s right for a settled forthcoming life.
Demi Tristan Djajadi - 16107081
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