Child Labor
It is estimated that 215 million children worldwide are in child labor, 115 million of kids in countries like Latin America, and in Europe are involved in dangerous tasks, 115 million kids in Afghan, Korean, and Asian villages have quit school voluntarily to work, and 6 million kids all across the world are forced to work against their own will. Most quit school to work, and they don’t get the education they need. Some of the locations that the children work in are full of smoke, or are just plain dangerous. Today I will try to prove to you that child labor should be banned because it is dangerous to the children, and that it is negatively hurting their education drastically. How many of you want to go to school? How many wish you were somewhere else right now? Well, at least you have the privilege to go to school.
The children from poor families in Asia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, don’t have this luxury. Well, they don’t really have much of anything. Blankets to sleep under, money to feed themselves until they feel full. And all because they have little to no money. And because of this lack of green, they quit school to work at mines, farms, and other places where they get paid.
But i’m not here to talk about money. What I want to do is prove to you is why you should care that the children aren’t getting the education they need. Many of us take school for granted. Do we ever stop to think about how lucky we are? There are many poor families in Syria, Pakistan, Indonesia, would kill to be where we are now. The kids in the poor countries are illiterate, they lack the social skills, and the mental skills that only a school could provide.
Over 57,000 boys, 120,000 girls are out of school because they need money to support their families. One solution to get kids back in school is to encourage education. We need to build free schools that the kids can go to, so the families don’t have to pay a cent. We could also donate to foundations like UNICEF so the schools will actually have the correct teaching supplies for the kids to learn. Some might say that quitting school to work is necessary for the kids to get food and money.
But there is another way instead. The organization called Heifer, gives money and food to poor villages all around the world. You could donate anywhere from 1 cent, to 1 thousand dollars and beyond. You can help these kids have a better education, and who knows, a poor illiterate child could become a famous author Another problem with Child labor is where the children work. Many work in coal mines, farming under the bright sun with no protection, and construction sites as miners, plowers, and the people who carry the materials to the workers on the skeleton of a building. In Asia alone, 33.
8 million child workers work in dangerous places. Poor kids from poor families in Africa, Latin America, Europe, and in Asia, work in the mine for little or no pay. They risk their lives going into the mine everyday to work, and most of the reasons are not for money. It is because they are forced too. What if the mine blew up? Or there was an accident with a minecart. Children could lose their lives.
And it wouldn’t be to help their family. It would be because they were either taken from their families, or they were owned by someone and they were forced to do it.Children are taken into mines, and inhale toxic and harmful toxins that damage or destroy their nervous systems and their respiratory systems.. They are taken from schools and their to work in places that are slowly killing them.
How many of you like chocolate? It is basically in every candy and is in many drinks. But in Ghana and in the Ivory coast, where chocolate is farmed, child labor is going on there too. Now to the most important part of this speech; the call to action. I already stated that we should donate money to the schools, but we could also donate used or new books and supplies to the schools so the children have books to read and paper to write on. We could also replace child workers with adult workers, so that the children aren’t working in the dangerous places that adults can withstand.
We could also donate to different foundations and organizations that help the poor villages in poor countries. It isn’t hard to make a difference, but if we do one simple thing like donate money to an organization, then it will help the people who need it immensely. A little thing can have a huge impact. Now here’s Hans to talk about Child slavery and trafficking, and the fact that kids work long hours for little money. Everyday 215 million children worldwide are working, and this work is dangerous, some kids are working in the mines, some work in thailand sugar cane farms, small forges where they smelt ores, a carpet factory in india.
And even after their hard work, which they start at early in the morning, and end late in the night, they only get the equivalent of 25 cents a day. Kids all around the world aren’t even volunteering to do this work, Its not always “We do it for our family because they need money”, or anything like that. Some of these kids don’t have any parents, some of these kids were thrown away, and some merchant guy takes them and forces them to work. It sad but its what’s happening right now. Just because its not happening here doesn’t mean its not happening out there.
A boy named Mothoham lived India was thrown away when he was 3 years old he had his older brother which was only 6 at the time, for many days Mothoham’s older brother took care of him and one day a man came and took the older brother and the 3 year old boy to work for him, “He promised many coins” Said Mothoham. As soon as they got there they were happy in the start making money to live and having a home, there home ended up being a bunch of cardboard boxes, they made only 70 cents a day they almost started starving. 2 years later when Mothoham started working in the mines with his brother he saw his brother get crushed right in front of him, the cave collapsed and his brother was squished, How sad is that? Worst of all the man who took them didn’t care he just told Motham to go back to work. Now this is happening around the world every single day. Kids are dying just because they are trying to make money to survive. Does that seem fair to you? No.
Next i’m going to talk about the slavery and the child trafficking. These mean people sell these children in markets, for money, maybe if they think they are too weak, or they just think they’re too much. People buy these children, and force them to work. The owner just give them small amounts of food, little to no money, and long long working hours. And its not only work some of these kids are sold for sex, some of these 12 or older girls are forced to work, abused, and r**ed.
In Zimbabwe a BBC investigation found out that kids were sold to the military and they forced the kids to go down in the mines, and the military men r**ed the girls just because they wanted to they didn’t care about the children’s health. Thats pretty sad, being a 5 to 16 year old and being forced to work or r**ed. If you guys remember, eric said before that, chocolate was made by using child labor well i’m going to tell you guys about it. Some of the kids working there have parents who regularly harvest the cocoa, but most their trafficked there illegally. It is estimated that 500,000 children are worked as slaves in the chocolate foundation, most of them living in terrible conditions.
They are tricked into going because the people who take them promise them money or a better life and most of these children aren’t the smartest people because they never went to school. They are forced to work under the sun, most of them suffering injuries because they are being forced to cut down grass with a machete. One solution for this is find the traffickers, and put them behind bars, But a problem to that is finding the traffickers so all we could really do is take the children away. Now the call to action. I have tried many things to try to help children around the world. But before when I was small I didn’t know much about the world, all I thought was everywhere is the same most of the time people aren’t always sad and it’s a happy world out there.
But then one Summer in Thailand we past a sugar cane farm, what I saw in front of me scared me so bad. I saw kids picking out sugar canes, they were all so skinny some of them were crying. Some where naked and the ones who were naked I could see gashes and marks and they were all unattended. And the question that still is in my head is what is the difference between me and a native Thai Boy? Whats the difference between a teenage american girl and a Pakistani Girl? Were all humans. So why do kids have to be sold and forced to work? The answer is money, they don’t have enough money to support themselves.
Their parents don’t have the money to keep their children with them so they have to sell them. So the solution to all of this, is donation. The donation could lower the chance of children going to child selling market. Because some children out there need and so please help.
