Child Labor History

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Pages: 8

What is Child Labor? (CH1)

According to the International Labor Organization, hazardous or illegal work is done by around 215 million child laborers around the world. What is child labor? Child labor is hazardous or illegal work that prevents children from getting an education, according to The Child Labor Education Project. Child labor has many different characteristics and can involve bonded labor (when a child is put into labor because of a loan that has been unpaid, according to Anti-Slavery.org ), slavery, trafficking, and forced work. How do children become child laborers? There are many reason why a child becomes a child labor. According to The Child Labor Education Project, poverty in some regions of world forces children to
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Why did children work in the factories? Did the factories abduct them or did they do it by choice? Well, many parents in families of poverty could not support their children and “gave” their children to a factory owner for money. Why were children working in the factories opposed to adults? The machines that needed to be operated in the factory didn’t require brute strength (children could operate them), and using children was cheaper than adults. Unlike farm work or housework, factory work was very hard, degrading and hazardous. “The factories were often damp, dark, and dirty,” Scholastic writes (reviewed by Milton Fried), “...The working children had no time to play or go to school, and little time to rest. They often became ill,” (scholastic.com, 2014). Child laborers often lifted heavy loads or operated machines in spinning …show more content…
Fortunately, people started to notice the cruelty of child labor. “Church and labor groups, teachers, and many other people were outraged by such cruelty,” wrote Scholastic (scholastic.com , 2014). Although other countries in Europe created laws which improved working conditions and the lives of the laborers (they also set an age where children were allowed to work), the United States took a long time to make laws similar (click here for the link to the photo Photo Credits) to those. Only 28 states in 1899 had made laws preventing child labor. Many unsuccessful attempts were made to create a national child labor law. However, in 1938 a leap in progress was made when Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act. The Fair Labor Standards Act successfully regulated laws on child labor, and it made guidelines on working hours and minimum ages for certain jobs (including dangerous