Child Labour: A Way Out of Poverty?

Photo of a Mongolian Child working by ILO-Asia Pacific

 

When examining controversial and serious issues, many individuals have opinions that may differ with others. This is the case for Suhail Singh as his recent blog post reveals that the act of child labour should be legalized in the case of personal family matters. However, what Singh fails to take into account is the harsh realities of children in a working labour force as the mental and physical challenges that they may encounter can lead to tragedy. 

Singh reveals in his blog post that children working in a struggling, family owned business should be legal as they can learn business experience at a young age that would prepare them for the future. This does not seem to be true however as the absence of school can actually lead to lower productivity in their future as they do not learn the necessary skills they would have if they were in school. 

The life experiences they would learn from working is not comparable to the educational value they would have gained if they went to school instead. 

In addition, as Singh mentioned the importance of a proper education, obtaining that education when working full-time is very difficult. Even when working part-time, it is still very difficult as they would become too tired to participate in activities that would benefit their schooling further. 

From UNICEF, they acknowledge that most of the time when children start working, it is not usually their choice, but rather their families are in financial difficulty that leads them to join the workforce. This has tragic consequences however, as "child labour can result in extreme bodily and mental harm, and even death. It can lead to slavery and sexual or economic exploitation. And in nearly every case, it cuts children off from schooling and health care, restricting their fundamental rights and threatening their futures."

Furthermore, Singh mentions that children working in dangerous climates should still remain illegal. However, it's not the work itself that could be detrimental to the child, rather it is them sacrificing their mental and physical states and as well as their education and that is why it should still remain illegal. 

In the case of children working because of poverty, Singh's blog post makes it seem like the chances of getting out of poverty are stronger if the family business implements one of their children as a worker. This is untrue however, as the skills they need to further themselves in the future would be non-existent because of a lack of schooling. This can actually lead to further poverty as they may not have the requirements to obtain a higher paying job. Once the child is an adult and has children of his own, he may need his children to start working. This is the harsh reality of child labour as it can be passed down from "generation to generation." 

It is crucial to examine both sides of the argument when dealing with such a controversial issue. However, it is clear that child labour should remain illegal as the negative aspects and outcomes that come with it greatly outweighs any positive factors that may be seen.  

 

SEO Explanation

I believe my title is search engine optimized as I compared the popularity of a number of words through google trends. I chose "child labour" instead of "child slavery" for example, as the number of searches for child labour were higher than the latter (child labour 5> Child slavery 0). In addition, I also initially chose "loophole" instead of "a way out", but when using google trends, I found out that "a way out" was searched much more often than "loophole". Choosing the word "poverty" was also a challenge as other words such as "bankruptcy" and "debt" were searched much more often. However, I still chose "poverty" as my choice as the other two words although similar to poverty, do not really coincide with my blog post as I don't really go into account of family debt or family bankruptcy, rather I tackle on a more broad aspect of being financially poor.