AN OVERVIEW OF CHILD LABOR AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS :: Essays Papers

AN OVERVIEW OF CHILD LABOR AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONSA little girl about seven years old, whos job as scavenger, was to collect incessantly from the factory floor, the flying fragments of cotton that might impede the work... plot the hiss machinery passed oer her, and when this is skillfully done, and the head, bole, and the outstretched limbs carefully glued to the floor, the steady moving, but threatening mass, may pass and repass over the dizzy head and trembling body without touching it. To many of us this paragraph belongs to the past. It is true, this was published in 1864 in England, but for even more people it would come as a wonder that the practice of child diligence exists as we speak. According to Krugman several thousand men, women and children live on Smokey Mountain dump in Manila, enduring the stench, the flies and the cyanogenetic waste in order to make a living combing the garbage for scrap metal and other recyclables. And the Smokey Mountain is very much submi t time story. Child labor is a persistent problem throughout the world, especially in developing countries. According to the latest statistics , Africa and Asia together account for over 90 percent of total child employment. Child labor is especially prevalent in rural areas where the capacity to enforce minimum age requirements for educate and work is lacking. What exactly is child labor? The International Labor Organizations convention 138 specified 15 years as the age preceding(prenominal) which a person may participate in economic activity. Also, another source (Ashagrie, 93) suggest that a child is a laborer if it is economically active, while governments and international organization usually consider a person economically active if the person works on a regular basis. Clearly thither are few different angles to look into this.At this point we can look at the child labor as the reserve army of labor but at the same time we need to take into consideration poverty and economi c weakness that are pushing children into work. The line of morality in regards to this issue is very thin are those children offend off not working and instead starve being dump scavengers or are they better off working for less than a minimum wage? In addition, the economies of third world nations often benefit from the introduction of low-wage manufacturing jobs. Their argument is that these sweatshop jobs can strait their countrys poor a release from malnourishment and poverty.