Irshad Ali writes about child labor:
THE complex issue of child labour has emerged once again.
The notion that children are being exploited and forced into labour while not receiving an education crucial to development, concerns many people.
Children do extremely hazardous work in harmful conditions, putting their health, education, personal and social development, and even their lives at risk.
Some of the circumstances they face are:
- Full-time work at a very early age.
- Dangerous workplaces.
- Excessive work hours.
- Subjected to psychological, verbal, physical and sexual abuse.
- Limited pay.
- Work and life on the streets in bad conditions.
- Inability to escape from the poverty cycle no access to education.
Most children work because their families are poor and their labour is necessary for their survival. Children are often employed and exploited, compared to adults they are more vulnerable, cheaper to hire and are less likely to demand higher wages or better working conditions.
If given education and an environment conducive to success, children grow into valuable assets, because as educated and successful adults they provide much more for society than the mindless work outputted by a sweatshop slave. Only a horrible world would have any person slaving away in a sweatshop, but we not only allow that to happen to adults… We allow it to happen to children! This only invigorates the poverty cycle, because denying children a healthy childhood causes them to never escape poverty. For that reason, most children born into poverty remain in poverty for their entire lives.