Children according to the convention of children rights, is all human under 18 years old refer to the law which related to children in current country except if the growth that they reach were faster. Children as a human is a part of the society, which still depends on their parents, and fragile of all kinds of abuse.
Through this article, we want to describe the history of child labor and also their existence in this current era. In this article, the term “child labor” was generally refers to children who work to produce a good or a service which can be sold for money in the marketplace regardless of whether or not they are paid for their work.
In the past time, we can see children who lived on farms worked with animals or in the fields planting seeds, pulling weeds and picking the ripe crops. That is kind of job that children have in their life. There is also discrimination in job description between boys and girls. If the boy looks after the animals, cattle and sheep while the girls milked the cows and cared for the chicken.
There is also another type of employment children, which is children who work for doing household chores (cleaning, cooking, and caring for children and shopping). Children who were employed in this type call as assistant in domestic. They get better situation than children who work in the farm because they worked at home with their parents. This form of child labor was not viewed by the society as cruel or abusive but was accepted as necessary for the survival of their family and the development of the child. Even it affected the number of hours in a month children must work.
The connotation of “child labor” began to change in the development of industry. Its begin when the first rural textile mills were built in England (1769), and of course child apprentices were hired as the primary workers. The factory system was criticized for strict discipline, harsh punishment, unhealthy working condition, low wages, and inflexibility work hours.
We can simply say that now, millions children worldwide are subjected to violence, exploitation and abuse including the worst forms of child labor in communities, schools and institutions; during armed conflict; and to harmful practice and also child marriage. Millions also, not yet as the subject, also remain without adequate protection.
Another thing that we have to know and considered about was where the factories recruited their children worker. Actually, they recruit them as worker from poor society around them. It could be working-class family which parents have low income. That is why they force their children to work, and get additional income for their family, even though their children will not save in the work place.
However, the child labor in England was increase during the revolution of industry. That is mainly because the development of the textile factories. Not only that one, but there are also another occupations of boys and girls became employer. They are agricultural-laborer, domestic servant and cotton manufacture. There are two factors why child labor increases. They are the supply of child labor and the demands.
The most common explanation for the increase in supply is poverty. Their parents sent them to work because they need additional income. With the dream of better life, rural families relocated to the cities to find work and please their children to be a worker. Another explanation is that work was traditionally; parents had worked when they are very young and required their children to do the same thing. That also because the children itself. They want to get their own income, so they can use their money to their own willingness.
In another hand is the demand from the factories. Because children were a cheap source, they think that children were ideal factory workers. Moreover, since the machine had more easy procedure, they can replace skilled worker with unskilled one, of course with cheaper wage, that is children.
Nowadays, people believe that not all works are bad for children. Some kinds of work may be completely unobjectionable. For instance, a child who delivered newspaper before school might be actually benefit from learning how to work, gaining responsibility perhaps, and a bit of money absolutely. But what if the children are not paid? Didn’t they are being exploited? We can simply said that that is exploitation, but if the work at one end and the beneficial work-promoting or enhancing children’s development without interfering schooling, recreation or rest—at the other. People have slightly different ways to see the line between the two lines, acceptable and unacceptable work.
As closing in this article, the most important thing for children is education. Without education, children are moreover pre-destined to become illiterate laborer without an opportunity to develop their full potential. Child labor just keeps the vicious cycle of poverty and ignorance the place. With this education also offers them possibility to think, and make a choice and to form their own opinion. They can defend their rights.
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