This is a rough draft essay in one of my ESOL courses about Child Labor
Swasti Niramaya #14
Dr. Scurry
ESOL 0360
July 23, 2017
This is The World’s Responsibility
“Child labor refers to work that is inappropriate because of a child’s age, the nature of the work, the number of hours worked, or some combination of these factors.” said by Wendy Herumin in her book Child Labor Today: A Human Rights Issue. Human trafficking, war, or HIV/AIDS are some of the causes of children becoming orphans. Many of these unprotected orphans become a statistic that is another underage working child. Sometimes, working is the only choice they have to survive. There are also cases where children must work not only to survive, but they also have to earn as much money as possible to pay off family debts, get an education, and healthcare. There are some families that encourage their children to work hard and in a dangerous location in order to have a better life in the future. For instance, child labor is very common in India. Millions of children are forced to work in 23 different types of industries. America being very concern about this issue; then the government passed a bill on June 12, 1999 entitled Executive Order 13126. This bill prohibits the acquisition of products produced by forced or indentured child labor. However, the passing of this bill does not mean that America is responsible to stop child labor around the world, especially in India. It is the world’s responsibility, not only America’s, to work as a team to remove child labor from the earth.
The ILO (International Labour Organization), in existence in 1919, is the only tripartite United Nation agency that brings together governments, employers and workers, representatives from 187 member states to set labor standards, develop policies and devise programs promoting decent work for all women and men. Since it was formed, the ILO has passed several conventions about child labor. One of the ILO’s conventions was adopted by Millennium Age Convention to establish eight goals for the human’s well-being in life. Three of them concentrate about children’s labor issue; provide universal primary education, promote equality for women and girls, and reduce the number of children who die young, have written clearly in the agreement.
Beside the ILO and Millennium Age Convention, The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is another world’s organization that seriously contributes to recede and remove the amount of forcing children as labors. UNICEF also supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, education for all boys and girls, and protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. Based on the UNICEF’s aim, the foundation to cut off child labor is education. These world organizations have been doing great by keep rising the consumption of education for children in the earth.
The other thing is that they have many reports that shown child labor is decreasing. A report that was passed by IPEC (International Program for the Elimination of Child Labor) states that one of developing countries, Brazil, was reported successfully dropping 50 percent of working children in recent years. In addition, according to the ILO, the total number of children engaging in child labor in Latin America between 2008 and 2012 had decreased by 11 percent, or by 1.6 million children. Despite these reports have given a satisfying effect for several countries, India moves slowly, and there are even many more amount of working children. Sadly to say, but a provable report; even though India is the member of the ILO, and they have had several conventions of related issue, they do not take seriously to recede child labor. Wendy Herumin said, “…it has never enforced them.”
Most of us know that child labor is still happening in most of the developing countries in the world. Nevertheless, this issue was also a real part of several developed countries’ histories. Child labor has ever existed in England, Netherland, and the United States. Yet, in fact, those countries are three of the nine countries as representatives of the ILO’s forming in 1919. Thus, why should only America that being liable for the child labor in India? The answer is clearly stated above that the child labor issue in India is not because of America’s bill, and not the part of American’s liability. This is about how the spirits, strategies, and cooperation among the nations in the world to break off child labor.
Herumin, Wendy. Child Labor Today: A Human Rights Issue. Berkeley Heights: Enslow Publishers, 2008. Print.
http://www.ilo.org
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-1999-06-16/pdf/99-15491.pdf
https://www.isi-web.org/index.php/resources/developing-countries
https://www.infoplease.com/world/world-statistics/how-many-countries
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