Child Labor In the Modern World

By Grace Chou

According to UNICEF, there are around 218 million children from ages five to seventeen who work as child laborers around the world. “Hazardous child labor is a betrayal of every child’s rights as a human being and is an offense against our civilization,” stated UNICEF in its article, “The State of the World’s Children.” Though many may believe that child labor is a thing of the past (chimney sweepers during the Industrial Revolution), the truth is, it still exists in developing countries even today. A number of underage laborers work in factories or agricultural settings, but the majority of them work informally by selling things on the streets, or work hidden in houses, “out of reach of official labor inspectors and media scrutiny.” However, among the most debated forms of child labor is the use of them as child soldiers or prostitutes. The exploitation of underage children in jobs unsuitable for them further endangers their lives and hinders their possibilities of having a “normal” ch-ildhood. Both the United Nat-ions and the International Labor Organization strongly denounce child labor. The U.N., in the Convention on The Rights on The Child, asserted that “States Parties recognize the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child’s education, or to be harmful to the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral, or social development.” In the 1990’s, every country in the world except for Somalia and the United States ratified this Convention.The concern for child labor has resulted in the boycott of many products produced by underage labor. For example, in November 2005, the International Labor Rights Fund filed a lawsuit against the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, which operated a rubber plantation in Liberia staffed by children. In October 2007, The Guardian, a British newspaper, “found children as old as nine working sixteen to nineteen hours a day in India at a vendor producing Gap for Kids clothing. However, Gap officials have dismissed these allegations, claiming Gap to be a company that “strictly prohibits child labor.”This boycott of child labor products may actually produce a negative side effect. Children, without the jobs provided by the factories, have turned to more dangerous and hazardous professions. For instance, UNICEF has found that around seven thousand Nepalese children turned to prostitution after the United States banned the country’s carpet exports. Africa has the largest number of child soldiers, with a 2004 estimate putting the nu-mber at around 100,000. In So-malia, nearly all factional militias use child soldiers, while the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda has abducted nearly 30,000 boys and girls over the past twenty years. Children in Zimbabwe are recruited by a National Youth Service, and are used for acts of violence against political dissidents. However, child soldiers are not only found in the African continent, but exist in all parts of the world, such as in Asia, Eastern Europe, and South America.Child labor is a topic of crucial importance in the current world, as it usually affects those out of the range of the media’s eye. The United Nations should work to protect laboring children from exploitation and environments dangerous to their mental and physical health. It is essential for children to have access to minimal levels of education, nutrition, and health care. Ultimately, the total elimination of child labor should be a goal the U.N. strives to achieve.