Millions of girls have to work in houses as servants or other occupations. Others are “promoted” to prostitution and pornography…
The largest number of child workers exist in the Asian and Pacific regions where 128 million children there ranging from an age group of five till 14 work In those regions.
The people responsible for child labour I think aren’t only the parents themselves, but the government of these regions which allow child labour, or just bypass it. In Cyprus for example, we don’t really have a problem with child labour for the simple reason that if even a 15 year old is caught working somewhere under a salary, the store he works at definitely will be penalized to some extent. Of-course im not comparing Cyprus with any other lower developed country as its clear that Cyprus is in a much more advantageous position, however the government of these LDC’s shouldn’t result to child-labour in fixing the problems in their economy or other problems the government may be facing. A government is set to be responsible for a country, to show whats right and wrong, and not to bypass things that ought to be illegal because it may help others, such as major companies which exploit and abuse children for work.
One thing I will emphasise is that not all children work because they want to. Children are actually enslaved, forcely recruited, and trafficked into hazardous work. Children in India however work for the simple reason that their salary is a source of income for their poor families.. Their income can be accounted between 34 and 37 percent of the total household income.
Srilanka is one of the countries which have found that a solution to reducing child-labour is compulsory education. With this they not only reduce child-labour to a great extent but also manage to educate the younger generation of their countries..
The major determinant of child labour is poverty. Even though children are paid less than adults, whatever income they earn is of benefit to poor families. In addition to poverty, the lack of accessible sources of money forces poor parents to engage their children into child-labour. Some parents even think that an education isn’t beneficial and that children learn work skills through labour at such a young age. I think these people are wrong and completely thoughtless of the long term benefits that education provides. Expensive education can be considered to be another determinant of child-labour. Because in some areas education is expensive or thought as useless or might be inaccessible, by this I mean might be far away from home, the children spend their time working.
The only way child-labour can be stopped is that poverty is delt with first. I find it highly unlikely that a parent would force his child to work if there wasn’t such a need for money.
