Child Labor Today What does this drawing tell

Child Labor Today

What does this drawing tell us about child labor and society? Do any of the words apply to you?

• Although many countries have laws that forbid child labor under a certain age, there are millions of children all over the world who are forced to work, especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America. • According to the United Nations, there about 215 million child workers all over the world.

What Kind of Work do Children Do? • Factory work • Picking cotton, cocoa and coffee beans, tobacco, sugar, rice • Street sellers/beggars • Guiding tourists • Polishing shoes • Washing cars • Sewing clothes • Soldiers • Making glass • Fishing • Carrying luggage • Sewing soccer balls • Mining (diamonds, gold, rocks) • Making bricks • Herding cattle or sheep • Making rugs • Household maids

How does child labor affect you? Your shirt likely contains cotton that was picked by children in Uzbekistan who are forced to trade their school days for days in the fields.

How does child labor affect you? Your cell phone has capacitors that are made with Coltan. 64% of Coltan reserves are located in Congo, a country in central Africa, where child laborers are at work from sunrise to sunset.

How does child labor affect you? The coffee in your house might be made from an estimated 200, 000 child slaves working in the west-African country Ivory Coast alone, which harvests 40% of the world's coffee beans.

How does child labor affect you? The gold in your jewelry may come from child laborers in west Africa, where kids as young as six years old dig mining shafts, work underground, pull up heavy weights of ore, and carry, crush, and pan ore. Many children also work with toxic mercury to separate the gold from the ore.

How does child labor affect you? 1. 8 million children in the Ivory Coast and Ghana work in the cocoa industry. The vast majority of them are unpaid. Most of the children laboring on cocoa farms are aged 12 to 16, but reporters have found children as young as 5. Some of the children use chainsaws to clear the forests. Others climb the cocoa trees to cut bean pods using a machete. Many work on plants that have been sprayed recently with pesticides. Once they cut the bean pods from the trees, the children pack the pods into sacks that weigh more than 100 pounds when full and drag them through the forest.

Child Labor Also Happens in the United States One example is children who work on tobacco farms. https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=0 -8 TBcea. O 5 Q#

What Problems do Children Face When They Work? • Long hours • Unsafe or harsh conditions that lead to disease, injury, or death • Little or no pay • Physical and emotional abuse • Kept from going to school • Kept from seeing a doctor • Sometimes sold as slaves to human traffickers • Little to no food during the day • Kept from families • No time to play or just be a kid

Why does Child Labor Happen Today? • Children can be paid less than adults • Laws against child labor are ignored or broken • There are too few labor inspectors to enforce the laws • Extreme poverty and the growing gap between rich and poor • Little or no education for children (even where education is free, poor families still cannot pay for books, uniforms, or meals)

Stop and reflect by answering these questions in your small group: 1. Why would children raised in extreme poverty be more at risk of being involved in child labor? 2. Does knowing that some of the products you buy are made with child labor change your opinion about those products? Explain. 3. Would you change your behavior in any way to help stop child labor around the world? If so, what would or could you do? 4. On the back of your paper, create a Venn Diagram that shows what is similar and what is different about child labor during the Industrial Revolution and today. 5. Make a list of at least five human rights that you think children should have. Rank them from most important (1) to least important (5). 6. Would acknowledging that children have rights change the way they are treated around the world? Why or why not?

Children Do Have Rights The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child established these human rights for all children: • Freedom from violence, abuse, hazardous employment, exploitation, abduction, or sale • Equal treatment regardless of gender, race, or cultural background • Free compulsory primary education • Adequate health care • The right to express opinions and freedom of thought in matters affecting children • Safe exposure/access to leisure, play, culture, and art • Adequate nutrition

How does the Convention of the Rights of the Child Work? • Governments of countries that have ratified the Convention are required to report to, and appear before, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child periodically • These countries will be examined on their progress with regards to the advancement of the implementation of the Convention and the status of child rights in their country • It came into force on 2 September 1990, after it was ratified by the required number of nations. Currently, 194 countries are party to it, including every member of the United Nations except South Sudan and the United States.

Answer these questions in your group: 7. Match up one or more of the UN’s Rights of the Child with the following natural rights that John Locke stated during the Age of Enlightenment. Life – Health – Liberty – 8. Do you think it’s important for countries to enforce the UN’s Rights of the Child? Explain. “All mankind…being all equal and independent, no one 9. Which of the UN’s Rights of the Child do ought to harm another in his you think is the most important and why? 10. Which of the UN’s Rights of the Child do life, health, liberty, or possessions. ” you think is the least important and why? - John Locke

What will it take to end child labor?