Child Labor
Can you imagine a kid that is only 6 years old and that is forced to do work like mining gold in a deep cave? Some kids are unlucky and are forced to do child labor. Child labor means that children have to be put to work in order to help support their families.
There are many different jobs that children do. The majority of them are harvesting crops like tobacco, cotton, bananas, sugar cane and much more. One of the most difficult and dangerous jobs is mining gold. Almost all of these jobs are very dangerous and many times result in accidents and even death. For an example mining gold is super dangerous because kids can die from explosions or even from the air. Also, tobacco can poison them or be cutting sugar cane with a machete can hurt someone seriously.
There are different regions of the world where child labor exists. The jobs children do depend on the local economy. For example, Peru has gold so many kids work in gold mines. In Mexico, they have a lot of farms so children will often work in fields. Many times in large cities children work in large, dirty and unsafe factories.
There is a big population of child labor. The total number of estimated participating in child labor is 148 million, 100 million of them are boys and 48 million of them are girls. The region that has the most child workers is South America. The two countries in South America with the most child workers are Peru and Brazil. The second largest is Mexico followed by Africa, India and last but not least the Philippines.
Most people agree that “Child labor can be dangerous and harmful.” Also, it keeps kids away from school because kids are working during the years they should be learning in school. As they become adults they are left with no education. This makes being successful in life much harder and many times leaves little hope of escaping poverty. Child labor is still happening right now. People are fighting to stop child labor because it is dangerous and affects their chance of success in life.