The Struggles of Child Labor
“Today, more than a quarter (>¼) of the world’s slaves are children. These children are forced to commit commercial sex acts, forced into a system of domestic servitude, or employed in occupations that are mentally, physically, socially, and morally harmful”(Source A). There are many forms of child labor such as armed conflict, forced and bonded labor, prostitution, pornography, drug trafficking, and more. Does this sound like something you hope for you children, siblings, or friends? I’d hope not.
The most common reason for child slavery is that the family doesn’t/didn’t have enough money to forgo the income that their child could provide, meaning that without the financial support of the child, new clothes, food, and schooling just wouldn’t be available. Children first started working when people (adults) discovered that most of their hands were too big to work with the smaller parts of the machines. The solution was to bringing kids into the business, but this is very harmful for children considering that now they can’t get proper schooling (plus all of the dangers of a factory workplace). Those factories payed children as little as they possibly could, and the amount they did give them was considered illegal for being under minimum wage. Most people who had worked when they were children end up needing their children to work also, because they never got a proper education so more well paying jobs won’t accept them. Which just gives their children a higher chance of needing more support, and while some can get out of that hole, what are the rest supposed to do?
While there are many forms of child slavery one of the more common ones falls under the category of sex trafficking, which is a big problem in Kansas. According to Kansas Attorney Derek Schmidt, “Human trafficking is the 2nd largest and fastest growing criminal industry in the world and more than 83% of human trafficking involves domestic victims”. Jobs that fall under the form of sex trafficking are prostitution, being a pornography model (and as a kid that is just disgusting), and they can also be included in drug trafficking. Now I know that I’ve kind of talked about this earlier, but in order to really understand what people are going through we have to dig deeper. Let’s say that your what 10, and live in a poorer family, you get mad at your parents and run away. You spend the night out on the streets and some adult finds you and asks you what’s wrong. You say that you got lost after running away from home and they say that they will help you find them, your parents. You hesitate but eventually agree. They take you to their vehicle, and while they are driving your crying because you miss your parents and you wonder why you even ran away in the first place. At this moment your driver acts like they feel bad for you and gives you a drink. Little do you know, it’s drugged. You wake up the next morning and your strapped down, and still on the road. The nice person you meet last night is not the same anymore they yell at you to be quiet and to stop fighting the restraints and that you’ll be there soon. You arrive at a hotel, but your still drugged so you feel a little out of it, and you fall back asleep. From that point on your stuck, your being told that in order to leave you have to sleep with this many people and pay your pimp a certain amount of money in order for you freedom. Your trying to work as fast as you can going from person to person, and after working for a year or two you finally raise the money, but they lied, and the cycle is nonstop, until maybe you’re old enough to find a way to escape the awful life that you’ve been living for the past few years, but your struggles aren’t over. You now have commitment issues and are struggling with anxiety thinking that you’ll be found and kidnapped again. This is sadly, the life of 1 out 0f every 7 children who run away from home (The Wichita Eagle).
One reason that sex trafficking is a big problem in Kansas is because of the options of highways. In Kansas you can travel East to West on I-70 which goes straight through Kansas, or if you want to travel North and South you can go on I-35. See the problem? It’s so easy to travel through Kansas and coming to or going from is very accessible for those idiots who kidnap children. One thing most people never think about is the effects on the parents. They have to live not knowing whether or not their child is alive or dead, and while those adults are stressing the adults who stole the children are making bank. A pimp (a man who controls prostitutes and arranges clients for them, taking part of their earnings in return) can make $150,000 and $200,000 per person, per year (they can make the same amount of money in 1 year that a lawyer can make in 10). If they have say 10 children they are easily making 1.5 million dollars a year, but that doesn’t come without sacrifice (for the children at least). Typically children see 25- 48 people per day! And they work for 12 hours a day, every day of the week, every week of the year. The endless hours are harshness of their work environment isn’t the only problem they endure because what if they get HIV/Aids? The endless problems don’t stop after they escape.
If child labor is “the enslavement of anyone under the age of 18” and is illegal when the workplace is “considered inhumane” or when the work could be “harmful to the child’s health and safety” then I would have to say that all of the above fit into this profile. No one should have to endure this type of punishment, but making this the life of children, that is sickening. I hope that you’ve been informed enough to want to help end sex trafficking and child labor for once and for all.
— — — — — Citation A — — — — —
“Child Labor | Enslavement of Children.” End Slavery Now, www.endslaverynow.org/learn/slavery-today/child-labor.
— — — — — Citation B — — — — —
“Sex Trafficking | Human Trafficking for Sex.” End Slavery Now, www.endslaverynow.org/learn/slavery-today/sex-trafficking.
