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Archive 1

Amoral view

Amoral really doesn't mean what KDRGibby keeps insisting that it does. According to my dictionary it means 1. "not admitting of moral distinctions or judgments; outside the sphere of morality; non-moral. 2. Lacking moral judgment or sensibility; unable to distinguish between right or wrong". It would be possible to have an amoral view of the issue, I suppose, but it would be something along the lines of "so what?" Friedman, the main authority cited, admits of moral distinctions and judgments as much as any other social commentator - why else bang on about "freedom", after all? What I think you are aiming at is something more like "morally-neutral" or "detached". However, if we admit that there is a view of this issue that is not bound up with moral judgements, we assert that that view is rational, objective and scientific, in contrast to the purely emotional (and therefore irrational and wrong) view of others. For those reasons, I think that whichever way it is phrased any attempt to divide arguments into moral and not moral is going to fall foul of POV. Mattley (Chattley) 19:12, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree. It's too weird for the title of a section. RJII 19:18, 9 February 2006 (UTC)


Amoral does not mean NOT moral Mattley. For example, economics is an amoral field of studies. It does not sit and posture human morality to determine policies. Amoral is the best word, both of you seem to be conflating Amoral with immoral but when you say that here is why child labor occurs, here is when it does not occur you are not making a moral judgment on whether it was good or bad. Stating that child labor is a necessary step in wealth building is not giving it moral support one way or the other. (Gibby 19:38, 9 February 2006 (UTC))

Sure, economics itself is "amoral." But, you don't label every economics section in various articles as the "amoral" section. Call it "economic analysis" or something. We already know that science is "amoral." Also, if you think economists are not guided by pushing a ethical POV, I think you're mistaken. RJII 19:51, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, they're called macro economists. (Gibby 20:09, 9 February 2006 (UTC))

Bold text

Italic text Shauna

Mandiee

Buddies


iLikeCheese!

Opening

I reworked the opening to this article. “perceived exploitation” is a cop-out, so I removed it, and addressed the term in the second sentence. I also changed “In some poor countries, it is considered inappropriate…” to what I imagine was the original wording of “In many countries, it is considered inappropriate…” and removed the accompanying text “or ethnic minorities doing agricultural-based work.” Irony/sarcasm doesn’t work that well in this medium. I also added a couple references to the United Nations, and the ILO.--Bookandcoffee 22:47, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I restated the opening sentences. The first sentence reflects the definitions from here, and the definition from the UN is moved to the block quote at the end of the paragraph.--Bookandcoffee 02:15, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Neutrality: Undue Weight

This article gives undue weight to libertarian economic assessments of child labor, and those assessments are too often presented as neutral (I have tried to correct that somewhat), such as the case with Milton Friedman. A libertarian perspective on child labor, while welcome, needs to be presented as a minority opinion, at best. Libertarian economic history runs radically counter to the majority of historical assessments of the reality of child labor, esp. in the 19th century.Wbroun 18:09, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Isn't wiki about verifiability? If libertarian statements can be verified, then they belong. If you can provide verifiable statements that they are in the minority, then those belong too. No? The Gomm 21:39, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
The contributors who tilted the whole article towards a libertarian perspective are misusing wiki, and perverting history. Truly "verifying" a majority or a minority view of child labor history requires more than a quick reference to a scholarly text, if that's what you mean. Try looking at child labor history titles at Amazon. See how many you encounter that pontificate on how child labor was actually just a temporary glitch in the all-wise free market. Still, establishing the verifiability of a minority view requires a comprehensive grasp of a wide range of primary and secondary sources, IMO. But anyone with a modicum of knowledge about 19th century western social history soon encounters a fairly general, widespread perspective which has no axe to grind: that only when legal protections of children were applied to 19th industry did child exploitation begin to dissipate in the west. This is well represented in popular histories such as the Columbia Encyclopedia:(http://www.bartleby.com/65/ch/childlab.html) A fanatic such as Milton Friedman argues that "the free market" would have corrected the problem eventually. That's a nice theory, but it's beside the point. Shoving libertarian view onto 19th century economic history is more about trying to communicate a narrowly observed political dogma than presenting an accurate view of history.Wbroun 00:51, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
Maybe an historiographies element needs to be added to the article. Circeus 14:48, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Given the impressive number of (mostly) non-libertarian citations and sources added recently, can we now eliminate the NPOV tag? The Gomm 03:08, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Wbroun, on one hand you claim that 'quick references to scholarly texts' supporting this position are perverting history. Then you basically point us to all those nice scholarly texts on Amazon that supposedly support your position. You also engage in pretty aggressive complaints ('But anyone with a modicum of knowledge', 'shoving... onto', 'fanatic', 'political dogma')...
In total, I disagree with you that there IS something like objective history, except bare physical facts (and even those are often unknown enough to be used). Everything else is to a large level interpretation - what one sees as evil, another may see as irrelevant or only circumstantial to the matter at hand. Providing these viewpoints here as well is more important than providing a consensus. If you hate the weighing, you are free to add your own references. MadMaxDog 05:32, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I too am not really comfortable with including in the article Friedman's claim that "the Industrial Revolution saw a net decline in child labor" given that in the interview used as a source, Friedman doesn't say where he gets this quite dubious information from. Should we include a quote from a famous economist even if his claims have no basis in fact? It seems misleading in the extreme. Andrew Levine 08:38, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, your change is acceptable to me, if that is the case. MadMaxDog 08:58, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Do you mean the change that I have already made to the article, or the one I just proposed above? Andrew Levine 09:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I think the quote should stay, but I think it would be acceptable to qualify it as you did here in the discussion page (put I'd rather if that were kept brief, maybe like thus 'However, Friedman cited no sources for this claim of a reduction.'). That alright with you as a compromise?. MadMaxDog 10:33, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
That sounds fair. Andrew Levine 19:31, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Who is pushing "political dogma"? The theory and data presented by Clark Nardinelli ("Child Labor and the Factory Acts," Journal of Economic History, Dec. 1980) are widely accepted among economic historians. The fact that some historians who are ignorant of economic theory and the relevant data might disagree is irrelevant. By all means include their opinions if you like, but let's not pretend that Friedman is just making arbitrary statements. The link about Friedman is to an interview. Of course he didn't cite sources. Who cites sources during an interview? But the sources do exist, and I have changed the article to reflect that. Also, in a post about neutrality, it is shameful that you pretend as if "Progressive" historians have no axe to grind. Anti-capitalism may be mainstream among historians, but that doesn't make it a neutral position. Those who disagree with Nardinelli should be held to the same standards of theory and empirical evidence. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.174.49.148 (talk) 19:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC).

Isn't the whole point of the encyclopedia to enlighten and not simply document the current dogma? Who can say that Friedman's view is "the minority" view. It's possible a majority of economists would agree with Friedman? The group that interviewed him and made the videos cited obviously agreed with his position, that's why they documented those interviews. Friedman wasn't a lone voice, he was picked to represent that point of view in the videos because he was recognized for his skill in talking about complex economic issues and putting them in simple terms. Very few economists disagree with Milton Friedman. The so called "libertarian view" of child labor is part of what anyone studying the issue needs to be exposed to. The message here is "What you think you know about child labor may be completely wrong." And isn't that the purpose of the encycopedia? SecretaryNotSure 11:04, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

It doesen't matter what the majority of Economists think what matters is what historians say on it —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikicities (talk • contribs) 03:02, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

If I may come into this conversation, Iwould like to point out fr:Travail des enfants (ie the French version), on which a lot of work has been done recently, and that includes reviewing by a few contributors from different backgrounds (and with different opinions regarding economics), so it has reached a fairly neutral status. Maybe this can give ideas to translators and/or people who enjoy NPOV ? le Korrigan →bla 11:10, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
To the silly Ignorant person two comments above, Economists have much more right to talk about Child Labor than historians. Cerealspammer (talk) 05:34, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

To the Moron who wrote that this is the industrial revolution that wer'e talking about idiot —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikicities (talk • contribs) 05:38, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

pictures

The fact that all the pictures are of girls implies that child labor had more of an impact on them. But theres nothing in the text of the article to suggest that. Qvkfgmjqy 23:50, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Don't exactly consider three pictures as strongly impying that... MadMaxDog 01:40, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Adding some more weight

While I tended to come down on the side of the 'industrial age child labor wasn't much worse than medievial style child labor people here on this article, and also have removed the NPOV tag, I do think that the conditions of child labor - industrial revolution, prior, now - do not get enough weight. This article is now mostly about the perception of child labor, not the actuality. Anybody up to add some more on that? MadMaxDog 05:33, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Scope of the article

To me the scope of the artcle seems to be very limited. It refers very little to status of chile labor in south america, asia, africa, australia. I think we need to add some sections on these continents too to have a wider picture. sticksnstones 16:02, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Feel free! Even if you start out with a single country only. MadMaxDog 06:17, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Unexplained figure found on page

File:Child labor red.svg
Explanation of Figure

Can somebody guess what this means and/or where it came from? The Gomm 18:34, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Statistics

I propose that we add statistics to the "Defense of Child Labour" section. There seem to be a lot of NPOV issues with the fact that Friedman is basically the only source cited. If I found some reputable statistics about the need for child labour in under-developed countries: per capita income, the cost of basic food and housing, how much the children make and what hours they work, what they would be doing if they weren't working, etc., would that be an acceptable addition? -Bonnie 22:37, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Need to know history of child labor

Knowing the history of child labor would also provide the people working to eradicate this menace to have an idea why this unsocial act came into existence nilesh —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 122.164.29.244 (talk) 08:02, 18 April 2007 (UTC).

Confusing wording

The section on "Current Corporate Campaigns - Cocoa" contains this:

"The three children acting as class representative plaintiffs are proceeding anonymously, as John Does, because of feared retaliation by the farm owners where they worked. The complaint alleges their involvement in the trafficking, torture, and forced labor of children who cultivate and harvest cocoa beans which the companies import from Africa."

It's not clear who is the "they" of "their involvement". The farm owners from the previous sentence? The companies? It also is jarring because following on from the previous sentence where the children are "they", it reads initially as if the "their involvement" refers to the children. Crana 23:05, 29 April 2007 (UTC) (Sorry, forgot to sign before saving page).

Removal of questionable material

William Anderson writes,
"The pre-factory age was not a time of happy, contented kids. From 1730 to 1740, 75 percent of children in England died before age five. From 1810 to 1829, supposedly the evil age of the factory, infant mortality fell to 32 percent and would continue to drop. Capitalism and the industrial revolution gave youngsters a chance to survive. "[1]

The item quoted from, Free Market, appears to be a sort of newsletter, not a referreed journal. The article is more of an opinion piece than an academic paper. It includes no references. As such, the middle two sentences are not of encyclopedic quality. The first and final ones are just "some guy's opinion". It would be great if it could be sourced better, but as it stands -- removed. BrainyBabe 17:06, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

The first part may be verifiable, the 2nd part may be an "opinion" although probably an opinion based on history. While we're checking for verifiable facts and "referreed journals," can someone explain how reference to "Oliver Twist" is some sort of historical reference? It's well known that Dickens wrote a lot of things because of the drama, not historical accuracy. The reference to a Charles Dickens novel is sort of like saying life on other planets is more advanced than us as documented in Star Trek. SecretaryNotSure 21:53, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not really defending the inclusion of Dickens. But I think the intent of the mention was not as citable evidence per se, but as an illustration meant to be already familiar to readers. Basically, Oliver Twist is a metaphor for 19th C working conditions, not evidence for them. I guess on the same line, an article might compare the size of e.g. a newly documented deep-sea squid to ones portrayed in Verne's A Thousand Leagues. Such comparison might not be necessary, but it might conceivably aid a reader in imagining the topic. LotLE×talk 22:43, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.99.176.227 (talk) 18:25, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Child Labor in Foreign Countries

We also need information on Child Labor in China, possibly in the China article, or this one. Thecutnut (talk) 08:58, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Page move

The article was originally written with 'labour' so that's fine, but I don't agree that the term is 'more correct.' Both are correct. However, the real problem is that 'child labour' is not a proper noun. The correct title should be 'Child labour.' I've requested the deletion of Child labor, as a 'housekeeping request,' to move the article to a grammatically correct title. Law shoot! 03:23, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Moved. Law shoot! 07:15, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Archive 1

Show business

Involving children in show business, is it considered child labour? Are there any restrictions? Alone Coder (talk) 22:28, 24 September 2009 (UTC) mESSINA IS AWESOME

Truth or just totally misplaced sentence

Under the "Historical"-section,the first few sentences of the fifth paragraph mentions the following: "A high number of children also worked as prostitutes.[10] Children as young as three were put to work." Seriously, at the age of three? Does not make any sense at all.
AFAIK this was a part of a thorough edit by Graham87 half a year ago, and I chose not to remove it since at least a part of the whole paragraph have listed sources.If someone agrees with me, I would be delighted if they'd remove it. --Samohtas (talk) 18:13, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Untitled

What is the typical lifespan of a child that starts to work at a very young age!? --Xalosj (talk) 18:45, 14 March 2009 (UTC) ~That's like asking the average lifespan of blonde people. 75.118.170.35 (talk) 21:44, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

child labor is very bad

I am not sure but I am almost certain that it reduces the lifespan. It is NOT like asking the average lifespan of blonde people because the environment that a laboring child is in can cause much harm and can often reduce the lifespan, therefore reducing the average lifespan of a child that starts to work at a very young age. -epic93 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.185.26.251 (talk) 16:15, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

How can you assert that child labor reduces life span if you don't have any sources or statistics to back that up? And sure it "can" cause much harm or reduce lifespan like driving with your kid in your car "can" reduce lifespan. The word "can" means nothing. Also if we were to find stats about the lifespan of kids working vs not working, the stats would have to take into consideration family income levels because families that have kids working are more likely to be poor and therefore more likely to have poor health care, etc. 76.176.28.68 (talk) 15:57, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

The post was originally asking for sources. I second that they be provided.

child labour

is children working as a supplier in mess is not an offence???????? plz give an answer....... and give an idea to eradicate this.... bcoz in my locality, lot of children were working as mess supplier....NOTE: chairmanship was an ex-politician(ex-mla)..... plz mail me... selvaramasamy90@yahoo.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.252.245.228 (talk) 12:48, 5 October 2009 (UTC)



Hai friend I m also agree with u r feelings........... because I too see lot of children still work like a slave!! &I m the one who is seeing this thing & i can't stop my self,so called the police they came there & arrested that man, that child to hostel where such childrens were live. But there also that child don't want to live there.Why??????????????????????????? Can u tell me [my ID is sattti_3868@yahoo.co.in]so plz mail me what is the reason???????????? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.31.140.52 (talk) 17:19, 10 January 2010 (UTC)


The historical section begins at the Industrial Revolution. This excludes the important context of the continuing practice of child labor from agricultural days. Child labor, was, in fact, a social standard for many thousands of years. This is revealed in all kinds of sources... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.132.202.158 (talk) 00:41, 18 October 2009 (UTC) so plz try to stop this offence —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.199.92.205 (talk) 11:32, 8 December 2010 (UTC) Child labour refers to the employment of children at regular and sustained labour. This practice is considered exploitative by many international organizations and is illegal in many countries. Child labour was employed to varying extents through most of history, but entered public dispute with the advent of universal schooling, with changes in working conditions during the industrial revolution, and with the emergence of the concepts of workers' and children's rights.

In many developed countries, it is considered inappropriate or exploitative if a child below a certain age works (excluding household chores, in a family shop, or school-related work).[2] An employer is usually not permitted to hire a child below a certain minimum age. This minimum age depends on the country and the type of work involved. States ratifying the Minimum Age Convention adopted by the International Labor Organization in 1973, have adopted minimum ages varying from 14 to 16. Child labor laws in the United States set the minimum age to work in an establishment without restrictions and for those who are younger than 16, need a written statement by a legal guardian acknowledging understanding of the duties and hours of employment and granting permission to work is required.[2] [3] except for the agricultural industry where children as young as 12 years of age can work in the fields for an unlimited number of non-school hours.In certain circumstances however news carriers may be employed at age 11 and juvenile performers in the entertainment area.[3] See Children's Act for Responsible Employment (CARE Act)


Historical


During the Industrial Revolution, children as young as four were employed in production factories with dangerous, and often fatal, working conditions.[5] Based on this understanding of the use of children as labourers, it is now considered by wealthy countries to be a human rights violation, and is outlawed, while some poorer countries may allow or tolerate child labour. Child labour can also be defined as the full-time employment of children who are under a minimum legal age.

The Victorian era became notorious for employing young children in factories and mines and as chimney sweeps.[6] Child labour played an important role in the Industrial Revolution from its outset, often brought about by economic hardship, Charles Dickens for example worked at the age of 12 in a blacking factory, with his family in debtor's prison. The children of the poor were expected to help towards the family budget, often working long hours in dangerous jobs for low pay,[7] earning 10-20% of an adult male's wage. In England and Scotland in 1788, two-thirds of the workers in 143 water-powered cotton mills were described as children.[8] In 19th-century Great Britain, one-third of poor families were without a breadwinner, as a result of death or abandonment, obliging many children to work from a young age. Two girls protesting child labour (by calling it child slavery) in the 1909 New York City Labor Day parade.

In coal mines, children would crawl through tunnels too narrow and low for adults.[9]These mines caused injury in their physical growth in the children. This was also the outcome of the hazardous factories and mills that they were forced to work in. They had to work in any situation or condition such as sickness which caused them to rather want to go to hell than go back to their assigned working places. Nunez, Sandra (1997). And Justice for All. Connecticut: Millbrook press.

  1. ^ Anderson, William (1996). "Kathie Lee's Children". Free Market, Volume 14, Number 9. Retrieved 2006-11-01.
  2. ^ "Child Labor Act". Retrieved 5 April 2014.
  3. ^ "Child Labor Act". Retrieved 12 January 2014.

Pre-industrial history

Children also worked as errand boys, crossing sweepers, shoe blacks, or selling matches, flowers and other cheap goods.[7] Some children undertook work as apprentices to respectable trades, such as building or as domestic servants (there were over 120,000 domestic servants in London in the mid-18th century). Working hours were long: builders worked 64 hours a week in summer and 52 in winter, while domestic servants worked 80 hour weeks.

Children as young as three were put to work. A high number of children also worked as prostitutes.[10] Many children (and adults) worked 16 hour days. As early as 1802 and 1819 Factory Acts were passed to regulate the working hours of workhouse children in factories and cotton mills to 12 hours per day. These acts were largely ineffective and after radical agitation, by for example the "Short Time Committees" in 1831, a Royal Commission recommended in 1833 that children aged 11–18 should work a maximum of 12 hours per day, children aged 9–11 a maximum of eight hours, and children under the age of nine were no longer permitted to work. This act however only applied to the textile industry, and further agitation led to another act in 1847 limiting both adults and children to 10 hour working days.

An estimated 1.7 million children under the age of fifteen were employed in American industry by 1900.[11] In 1910, over 2 million children in the same age group were employed in the United States.[12]

Present day

Today child labor is the illegal employment of children. The laws now state that children may not work more than eight hours a day when school is not in session and no more than three hours when school is in session. These are some of the conditions set to deal with the complexity of the working lives of children. In farms, there used to be dangerous hazards and accidents from the hazardous machines. So today, they can only help pick crops or food to work at a farm. Greene, Laura (1992). Child Labor: Then and Now. New York: Franklin Watis.

Child labour is still common in some parts of the world, it can be factory work, mining,[13] prostitution, quarrying, agriculture, helping in the parents' business, having one's own small business (for example selling food), or doing odd jobs. Some children work as guides for tourists, sometimes combined with bringing in business for shops and restaurants (where they may also work as waiters). Other children are forced to do tedious and repetitive jobs such as: assembling boxes, polishing shoes, stocking a store's products, or cleaning. However, rather than in factories and sweatshops, most child labour occurs in the informal sector, "selling many things on the streets, at work in agriculture or hidden away in houses—far from the reach of official labour inspectors and from media scrutiny." And all the work that they did was done in all types of weather; and was also done for minimal pay. As long as there is family poverty there will be child labour.[14]

According to UNICEF, there are an estimated 250 million children aged 5 to 14 in child labour worldwide, excluding child domestic labour.[15] The United Nations and the International Labor Organization consider child labour exploitative,[16][17] with the UN stipulating, in article 32 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child that: 

   ...States Parties recognize the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child's education, or to be harmful to the child's health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development. Although globally there is an estimated 250 million children working.[17]

In the 1990s every country in the world except for Somalia and the United States became a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, or CRC. Somalia eventually signed the convention in 2002; the delay of the signing was believed to been due to Somalia not having a government.[18] A boy repairing a tire in Gambia

In a recent paper, Basu and Van (1998)[19] argue that the primary cause of child labour is parental poverty. That being so, they caution against the use of a legislative ban against child labour, and argue that should be used only when there is reason to believe that a ban on child labour will cause adult wages to rise and so compensate adequately the households of the poor children. Child labour is still widely used today in many countries, including India and Bangladesh. CACL estimated that there are between 70 and 80 million child labourers in India.[20]

Child labour accounts for 22% of the workforce in Asia, 32% in Africa, 17% in Latin America, 1% in US, Canada, Europe and other wealthy nations.[21] The proportion of child labourers varies a lot among countries and even regions inside those countries.

Defence of child labour

Concerns have often been raised over the buying public's moral complicity in purchasing products assembled or otherwise manufactured in developing countries with child labour. However, others have raised concerns that boycotting products manufactured through child labour may force these children to turn to more dangerous or strenuous professions, such as prostitution or agriculture. For example, a UNICEF study found that after the Child Labor Deterrence Act was introduced in the US, an estimated 50,000 children were dismissed from their garment industry jobs in Bangladesh, leaving many to resort to jobs such as "stone-crushing, street hustling, and prostitution", jobs that are "more hazardous and exploitative than garment production". The study suggests that boycotts are "blunt instruments with long-term consequences, that can actually harm rather than help the children involved."[14]

According to Milton Friedman, before the Industrial Revolution virtually all children worked in agriculture. During the Industrial Revolution many of these children moved from farm work to factory work. Over time, as real wages rose, parents became able to afford to send their children to school instead of work and as a result child labour declined, both before and after legislation.[36] Austrian school economist Murray Rothbard said that British and American children of the pre- and post-Industrial Revolution lived and suffered in infinitely worse conditions where jobs were not available for them and went "voluntarily and gladly" to work in factories.[37]

British historian and socialist E. P. Thompson in The Making of the English Working Class draws a qualitative distinction between child domestic work and participation in the wider (waged) labour market.[5] Further, the usefulness of the experience of the industrial revolution in making predictions about current trends has been disputed. Social historian Hugh Cunningham, author of Children and Childhood in Western Society Since 1500, notes that: 

   "Fifty years ago it might have been assumed that, just as child labour had declined in the developed world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, so it would also, in a trickle-down fashion, in the rest of the world. Its failure to do that, and its re-emergence in the developed world, raise questions about its role in any economy, whether national or global."[36]

According to Thomas DeGregori, an economics professor at the University of Houston, in an article published by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank operating in Washington D.C., "it is clear that technological and economic change are vital ingredients in getting children out of the workplace and into schools. Then they can grow to become productive adults and live longer, healthier lives. However, in poor countries like Bangladesh, working children are essential for survival in many families, as they were in our own heritage until the late 19th century. So, while the struggle to end child labour is necessary, getting there often requires taking different routes—and, sadly, there are many political obstacles.[38]

The International Labour Organization’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), founded in 1992, aims to eliminate child labour. It operates in 88 countries and is the largest program of its kind in the world.[39] IPEC works with international and government agencies, NGOs, the media, and children and their families to end child labour and provide children with

by.... ratnesh kanungo of rps — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.58.116.233 (talk) 15:38, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from 209.152.45.6, 25 July 2011

Please remove this sentence "And all the work that they did was done in all types of weather; and was also done for minimal pay. As long as there is family poverty there will be child labor", which occurs at the end of the first paragraph of the section titled "Present Day" Although it has a source I find the language overly dramatic and unnecessary. 209.152.45.6 (talk) 22:53, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

 Done. Feezo (send a signal | watch the sky) 06:44, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Involved Countries

is it possible to relate to other countries besides India today such as countries in Asia for example? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.26.213.182 (talk) 14:50, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Can Indian government do anything about it? too poor. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Khalidshou (talk • contribs) 16:29, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I think it should be spread upon in order to get a better view of the way child labor globally effects children instead of focusing primarily on one country. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Akatsuki21 (talk • contribs) 15:00, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

What about the childslavery in Europe. Dutch BJZ company for instance rent out children from the age of 6 to work all over Europe in factories, farms or other companies. The French government was the only one to ever protest to this, because children died on the job. and the French could not insure children for work related injuries. The work these children do takes up to 18 hours a day and there are no laws in place to make the owners buy safety gear for them. The children get no education and there is no law on this as they are exported to another country within the EU and therefore are exempt from the national law on education. Even if they were to get any education during the 6 hours a day they have left, it would not amount to them learning anything. If education is given the level of education would not be up to the standard of personal achivement. It would be to make them work better in their work environment only. Several thousand kids a year by one company only is just too much to ignore. And there are many such companies operating in Holland. Something wiki should definitly highlight. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.43.104.55 (talk) 12:04, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

In the list of links at the end of the article the Newsboys' Strike needs to be corrected to 1899 not 1819. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.149.4.99 (talk) 09:12, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Newspaper routes

Do you know if there are still children in America who have newspaper delivery routes? Didn't they have to start at 4 or 5 a.m.? I know there were all while I was growing up & not too long ago there were still many, but I don't think there are many now, or I just don't hear of any. Stars4change (talk) 16:33, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I have looked in recent years and have not seen any anywhere. I think it's because adults in cars are much more efficient -- ie cheaper per subscriber-- Rjensen (talk) 19:25, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

gay

Child labor incidence reports and wikipedia's WP:UNDUE guidelines

Wikipedia guidelines suggest each article fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint. Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should consider what to include and with how much relative emphasis.

The discussion about corporations such as GAP etc., while in good faith and relevant, is excessive. For what it is worth, 90%+ of world's child labor - from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe - has little to do with these corporations. Yet, there is undue weight on corporate side, and lack of due weight on relevant regional / rural / topical / policy issues across the world.

In terms of coverage, I acknowledge that our western media has covered this prominently. But western media circulates in less than 15% of world's population. If we include media from Africa, Asia, Latin America, there is undue weight in these GAP and related stories, and deserve to be trimmed down (but not eliminated). Further, if we weigh the prominence of viewpoints in articles and publications from United Nations organizations such as ILO, UNICEF, other global institutions such as World Bank, IMF, peer reviewed journals covering child labor - then WP:DUE guidelines suggest that these corporate sections be significantly trimmed, and the encyclopedic summary in this wiki article include relevant regional / topical / policy viewpoints that these WP:RS sources prominently cover.

Comments on improving this part of this wiki article are welcome. ApostleVonColorado (talk) 21:49, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

History of Child Labour

There is no article History of child labour. I suggest, that it should be made from parts of this article. Sarcelles (talk) 20:05, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Why? Please note that unnecessary content forking makes wikipedia less useful to its readers, and multiple articles on the same topic are more difficult to maintain for content contributors. See WP:CFORK.
If you have a lot more content to add to the history, please consider a temporary article in a sandbox. I do not support what you suggest: 'take parts of this article and make a new article.' ApostleVonColorado (talk) 21:05, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

POV Dispute

I notice that this article deals mainly with Great Britain and the United States. I am doing a research project that deals with German Child Labor, and there is next to nothing on Germany. I would ask that someone please get some facts on other european countries in here.Cbrittain10 (talk|contribs) 13:32, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

There's no pov involved. language of the RS is the main barrier regarding Germany. I hope Cbrittain10 adds text from his research before waiting around for others to do so. Rjensen (talk) 13:48, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 27 November 2012

Add This Link For Child Labour Suggestions http://www.fmurdu.com/artist/design/508-child-labour Rohibook (talk) 12:42, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Not done: Please see the policy on external links. The external links section as it stands is already a bit excessive, and I'm not inclined to add to it. —KuyaBriBriTalk 15:50, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Colonial Empires

The date 1650 seems arbitrary in the section on Colonial Empires. There is no source. This blog post (http://blogs.loc.gov/law/2012/12/the-laws-of-burgos-500-years-of-human-rights/) refers to the Laws of Burgos that had provisions in them concerning child labor. Maybe this section should be expanded. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.147.236.194 (talk) 19:22, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

topic Child labour laws and initiatives

I think it shouldn't be "Three countries yet to domestically ratify the 1990 Convention include Somalia, South Sudan and the United States.[64][65]" but Three countries yet do domestically ratify the 1990 Convention include Somalia, South Sudan and the United States.[64][65]. As I'm not registered in the english Wikipedia long enough I can't change it myself, could smb? Thank you. --Macuser10 (talk) 15:56, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Not done: The syntax is a bit awkward but the grammar is correct. Your suggested wording would mean that they ratify it (in the present tense, which doesn't make sense). Rivertorch (talk) 06:09, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
I simplified the wording. See if it makes more sense to you now. Rivertorch (talk) 06:13, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
I agree that my suggestion was wrong; now it´s better. thanks--Macuser10 (talk) 14:41, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Consistency: Labour and Labor

There are several instances of both the words Labour and Labor in this article. However, even though there are only 36 instances of labor, there are over 100 instances of labour. Many thanks to command F.

Should it be made so there is only one? If so, which one? 66.108.76.50 (talk) 01:34, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Does it really matter? The point is people whoever can read the English-language article will be able to read it. It really doesn't matter which way "labor" is spelled, or how many times it is spelled a certain way. 68.46.42.9 (talk) 10:20, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Their is nothing about the benefits of child labour

I don't want to sound evil but just hear me out... Child labour in sweatshops can be a better alternative to other proffesions. Children are not forced into working in sweatshops and working in a sweatshop is often a better option than prostitution and scavenging — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.148.69.132 (talk) 18:31, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

I question your blanket statement that "children are not forced into working in sweatshops". However, the view you're expressing about the lesser of various evils is one I've heard before, and it may have some merit. To mention it in the article, it needs to be reliably sourced. If you find a good source, please provide a link to it here, along with some proposed text and an indication of where you want it to go. Rivertorch (talk) 20:07, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

general bias in these articles

Why is it that the pro-capitalist position seems to get the last word in many articles about controversial topics such as child labor (or any of the myriad, unscrupulous practices employed by capitalists around the world)? This article seems to dance around these topics - especially when it comes to child labor in the U.S. It was not the reformer or the politician that ended the grim necessity for child labor; it was capitalism. Actually, no, it was education laws finally getting some federal teeth during the New Deal Era. I will be recommending to others that they find more scholarly and balanced sources; other than these wikipedia articles, which seem to be the purview of the Laissez-Faire set, only... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.209.144.16 (talk) 16:21, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

The Map of child labor is incorrect according to the references informed

The colors of the map do not represent the data informed by UNICEF on the address http://www.childinfo.org/labour_countrydata.php, used as reference.

For instance, according to Unicef´s statistics, Brazil has 3% of child labor rate, but it´s marked on the map as 10 - 20% of children working. On the other hand, Peru has 34% &india has 30% of children working according to Unicef´s data, but in the map it appears as having less than 10%. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.55.62.233 (talk) 12:45, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Article on Child labour by country

I would like to write an article on child labour. I suggest that it should contain an introduction and a list of countries with more than a million children between 5 and 14 working, listed by the respective number of children working. Sarcelles (talk) 21:23, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

That is a good idea. It would make it easier for people researching on Wikipedia to find specific info. Hendrick 99 (talk) 04:55, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Mother Mary Jones

This shows that Jones called child workers slaves in the 20th Century USA (see #1) & details of their work/lives, & it has lots of great history, can you add it? http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAjonesM.htm Hillmon7500 (talk) 00:54, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 April 2014

117.204.19.34 (talk) 19:34, 2 April 2014 (UTC) Every day, millions of children in India wake up with nothing to look forward to except hours of back-breaking labour working everywhere from stone quarries to carpet factories to rice mills. Children as young as 5 years-old are kept from school, forced to work 7 days a week for up to 18 hours a day and end up with crippling injuries, respiratory disorders and chronic pain.

Because these children are often left illiterate and plagued with health problems, they are – in a cruel twist of fate – less likely to find employment once they reach adulthood. This continued enslavement of children traps generations of Indians in a vicious cycle of slavery, illiteracy and poverty.

Thankfully, the Indian Parliament is considering legislation called the “Child and Adolescent Labour Abolition Bill,” which: 

1. Prohibits the employment of children up until 14 years of age,
2. Outlines harsher sentences for violators of child labour laws and
3. Provides for monitoring of suspected instances of child slavery.


What is child labour : 

           Considerable differences exist between the many kinds of work children do. Some are difficult and demanding, others are more hazardous and even morally reprehensible. Children carry out a very wide range of tasks and activities when they work.

Defining child labour

Not all work done by children should be classified as child labour that is to be targeted for elimination. Children’s or adolescents’ participation in work that does not affect their health and personal development or interfere with their schooling, is generally regarded as being something positive. This includes activities such as helping their parents around the home, assisting in a family business or earning pocket money outside school hours and during school holidays. These kinds of activities contribute to children’s development and to the welfare of their families; they provide them with skills and experience, and help to prepare them to be productive members of society during their adult life.

The term “child labour” is often defined as work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development.

It refers to work that: 

1.is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children; and
2.interferes with their schooling by:
3.depriving them of the opportunity to attend school;
4.obliging them to leave school prematurely; or
5.requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work.

In its most extreme forms, child labour involves children being enslaved, separated from their families, exposed to serious hazards and illnesses and/or left to fend for themselves on the streets of large cities – often at a very early age. Whether or not particular forms of “work” can be called “child labour” depends on the child’s age, the type and hours of work performed, the conditions under which it is performed and the objectives pursued by individual countries. The answer varies from country to country, as well as among sectors within countries.


What is child labour? 

                      Child labour is a complex problem and numerous factors influence whether children work or not. Poverty emerges as the most compelling reason why children work. Poor households spend the bulk of their income on food and the income provided by working children is often critical to their survival. However, poverty is not the only factor in child labour and cannot justify all types of employment and servitude. Countries may be equally poor and yet have relatively high or relatively low levels of child labour.

            Other factors include:

1. Barriers to education 2.Culture and tradition 3.Market demand 4.The effects of income shocks on households 5.Inadequate/poor enforcement of legislation and policies to protect children


Effective abolition of child labour : 

                Children enjoy the same human rights accorded to all people. But, lacking the knowledge, experience or physical development of adults and the power to defend their own interests in an adult world, children also have distinct rights to protection by virtue of their age. One of these is protection from economic exploitation and from work that is dangerous to the health and morals of children or which hampers the child's development.


CHILD Protection & Child Rights : 

                          Poverty and lack of social security are the main causes of child labour. The increasing gap between the rich and the poor, privatization of basic services and the neo-liberal economic policies are causes major sections of the population out of employment and without basic needs. This adversely affects children more than any other group. Entry of multi-national corporations into industry without proper mechanisms to hold them accountable has lead to the use of child labour. Lack of quality universal education has also contributed to children dropping out of school and entering the labour force. A major concern is that the actual number of child labourers goes un-detected. Laws that are meant to protect children from hazardous labour are ineffective and not implemented correctly.

A growing phenomenon is using children as domestic workers in urban areas. The conditions in which children work is completely unregulated and they are often made to work without food, and very low wages, resembling situations of slavery. There are cases of physical, sexual and emotional abuse of child domestic workers. The argument for domestic work is often that families have placed their children in these homes for care and employment. There has been a recent notification by the Ministry of Labour making child domestic work as well as employment of children in dhabas, tea stalls and restaurants "hazardous" occupations.

Bonded child labour is a hidden phenomenon as a majority of them are found in the informal sector. Bonded labour means the employment of a person against a loan or debt or social obligation by the family of the child or the family as a whole. It is a form of slavery. Children who are bonded with their family or inherit a debt from their parents are often found in agricultural sector or assisting their families in brick kilns, and stone quarries. Individual pledging of children is a growing occurrence that usually leads to trafficking of children to urban areas for employment and have children working in small production houses versus factories. Bonded labourers in India are mostly migrant workers, which opens them up to more exploitation. Also they mostly come from low caste groups such as dalits or marginalised tribal groups. Bonded child labourers are at very high risk for physical and sexual abuse and neglect sometimes leading to death. They often are psychologically and mentally disturbed and have not learnt many social skills or survival skills.

Child labour in India is addressed by the Child Labour Act, 1986 and National Child Labour Project.

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 23:02, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Eliminating Child Labor in the US

Tprevo5728 (talk) 23:18, 6 April 2014 (UTC)It took many attempts for child labor to be regulated successfully in the United States. Many laws were passed but there were many loopholes in them and they were not always enforced. In fact, laws passed in 1916 and 1918 were said to be unconstitutional. However, the main reasons that child labor was stopped were not from laws, but from machinery. New machinery did what the children had done, and adults with at least some education and skills were needed to work these machines. Also, in 1938, The Fair Labor Standards Act was passed, which set a national minimum wage and limits on child labor including that children under 16 could not work in mines and manufacturing.[1] Tprevo5728 (talk) 23:18, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

  1. ^ "Childhood Lost: Child Labor during the Industrial Revolution". Eastern Illinois University. Retrieved January 14, 2014.

United States Industrial Revolution

Tprevo5728 (talk) 23:46, 6 April 2014 (UTC)Child labor in the United States reached its height during the Industrial Revolution. Many immigrants came to the United States hoping for a better life, but many of them ended up doing physical labor with their children. Children were needed because they were nimble and small, so they could get in small spaces adults could not. It was difficult for children to organize unions, so they had no say in what they were paid and how long they worked. Therefore, children worked as long as 14 hours with few breaks. Most of them were just fighting to stay above the poverty level, so they did not go to school much or in some cases at all. They often had the most dangerous jobs like handling the dangerous tools and carrying heavy loads with the worst conditions. Many children got caught in machinery and got injured or killed, while others died from diseases like cancer.[1] [2] Tprevo5728 (talk) 23:46, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

  1. ^ "Childhood Lost: Child Labor During the Industrial Revolution". Eastern Illinois University. Retrieved January 14, 2014.
  2. ^ "Child Labor". Retrieved February 2, 2014.

Labor in Indigenous Cultures

As a student in an Upper Division UCSC Seminar class focused on indigenous learning, we have reviewed many examples of work that may be viewed as labor by the western world, but is in fact beneficial to the development of some indigenous children. Would there be a possibility of me/my classmates including some content dealing with this issue? Almasmit (talk) 20:59, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

I would like to add some information along these lines. Is it possible for me to have access? Rmroush (talk) 21:16, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Major work on bonded child labour in India

Bonded Labour — Preceding unsigned comment added by Junned1098 (talk • contribs) 09:24, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Edit request: Definition of child labour

In practice, there are two very different criteria in common use for classifying children's work as child labour. One is the criterion that you have here: serious hazards and any type of harm. There is general agreement that children should be protected from harm in such work, although there may be differences in assessing harm and hazards, and in what to do about them.

The other is the employment of children below a legal minimum age, focussing on employment and age irrespective of harm and hazards. This second criterion overlooks harmful work within the home, and prohibits much part-time work that could be beneficial to children outside school hours or school terms, or to children who for some other reason are out of school. The correlation between child labour thus defined and child labour as harmful work is widely assumed, but to my knowledge has never been verified by empirical data.In many situations, benign work is prohibited by minimu8m-age criteria. Although there is some overlap between the two criteria, enforcing minimum-age standards frequently deprives children of useful opportunities and do not always work for the best interests of children. Indeed, they discourage people from acknowledging the full value of children’s contributions, and encourage exploiting their work as unpaid ‘help’.

It is not appropriate for Wikipedia to get involved in this debate, but it should provide information on the very different criteria. The two criteria are frequently blurred in the media and by many organisations, sometimes deliberately for political purposes. Wikipedia should not endorse such blurring.

On two minor points, to cover harmful work of self-employed children and children undertaking harmful work outside employment, in the first line the word ‘employment’ should be changed to ‘engaging’. Taken literally, the clause ‘deprives children of their childhood’ is meaningless. Notwithstanding ILO usage, you cannot deprive someone of childhood. But you can denigrate childhoods that are different and difficult, which is what this ethnocentric clause does. It offers no information and should be deleted.

I suggest the first paragraph of the article be edited to make two paragraphs something like this:

Child labour primarily refers to the engaging of children in any work that interferes with their ability to attend regular school, and that is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful.[3] This practice is exploitative and is condemned by many international organisations.

The term ‘child labour’ is also widely used in a legal sense to refer to work that contravenes legislation establishing a minimum age for employment, whether or not such work is in any way harmful to children. Legislation across the world prohibits child labour in this sense.[4][5] These laws do not consider all work by children as child labour; exceptions include work by child artists, supervised training, certain categories of work such as those by Amish children, and others[6][7] ; but light economic work available to children in poor communities is not normally excepted. While legislation establishing a general minimum age for employment serves to keep children out of the labour force, there is debate over whether this serves their best interests, or whether rather it restricts opportunities for useful experience and chances for poor children to improve their lives.

See Bourdillon, Michael, Deborah Levison, William Myers, and Ben White. Rights and Wrongs of Children's Work. Rutgers Series in Childhood Studies. edited by Myra Bluebond-Langner New Brunswick, etc.: Rutgers University Press, 2010.

209.211.131.181 (talk) 19:12, 22 October 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Charles4597 (talk • contribs) 07:37, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 July 2014

please give more in india 209.211.131.181 (talk) 19:12, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Not done: as you have not requested a specific change.
If you want to suggest a change, please request this in the form "Please replace XXX with YYY" or "Please add ZZZ between PPP and QQQ".
Please also cite reliable sources to back up your request, without which no information should be added to, or changed in, any article. - Arjayay (talk) 20:23, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Edit request for 22 October 2014

In the section Colonial empires, second paragraph, second sentence, please change the wikilink [[Head Tax]] to [[tax per head|head tax]]. This will bypass what is currently a redirect to a disambiguation page, replacing it with a link to the correct article. Thanks in advance. 209.211.131.181 (talk) 19:12, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Done Stickee (talk) 00:36, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Europe respectively Switzerland and Wiedergutmachungsinitiative, Verdingkinder and Kinder der Landstrasse

Hi, started the section Child labour#Other European countries (Russia is mentionned before), i.e. primarly those section Switzerland, focus on Wiedergutmachungsinitiative, Verdingkinder and Kinder der Landstrasse, affected around 100,000 children from the 1920s to the 1970s in Switzerland; so imho it's worth to be mentioned here. Some referernces are added in the wiki, among them originating from BBC News and New York Times. As not being my 'focus' within EN-WP, i hope it's a usefull minor start of Switzerland-related Child labour, and therefore i just allow to also mention the so-called Kaminfegerkinder ("chimney sweep children") and chidren working p.e. in spinning mills in 19th-century Switzerland, hoping a more engaged Wikipedia enthusiast may contribute some more adequate additions. Thx and kindly regards, Roland zh 21:33, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi,

2% of the article devoted to Switzerland are too much.Sarcelles (talk) 17:50, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi, i see, also a statistical question, therefore with the above mentioned restrictions, so you other Wikipedian enthusiasts are interested, Child labour in Switzerland will be just started, and some linkfixes within Child labour are done. Kindly regards, Roland zh 20:12, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 January 2015

A boy repairing a tire in Gambia.

Accurate present day child labour information is difficult to obtain because of disagreements between data sources as to what constitutes child labour. In some countries, government policy contributes to this difficulty. For example, the overall extent of child labour in China is unclear due to the government categorizing child labour data as “highly secret”.[1] China has enacted regulations to prevent child labour; still, the practice of child labour is reported to be a persistent problem within China, generally in agriculture and low-skill service sectors as well as small workshops and manufacturing enterprises.[2][3] Abhilashajain950 (talk) 12:17, 5 January 2015 (UTC)


Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 13:08, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

When people use child labor, they are hurting the world and Gods people. STOP CHILD LABOR!!!!!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:FCC8:E141:7100:F8F1:897:CB4A:A58D (talk) 20:27, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

  1. ^ "Children's Rights: China". Law Library of Congress, United States. 2012.
  2. ^ Karine Lepillez (2009). "The dark side of labour in China" (PDF).
  3. ^ "Who is the culprit of child labor". Hichkey. 29 December 2014.

Semi-protected edit request on 20 March 2015

labor is spelled wrong everywhere

Zac6502 (talk) 14:37, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

 Not done: See MOS:ENGVAR. Wikipedia accepts all varieties of English and there is no need to change one to another, with a few exceptions, such as if the subject is British (then it would be desirable to write the article in British English). Otherwise, if the article was originally written as British English, it should stay as British English. --I am k6ka Talk to me! See what I have done 14:43, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 March 2015

Moeyzein (talk) 00:19, 28 March 2015 (UTC) cjild labour is about people who work at young ages

 Not done The article already has encyclopedic language stating much the same thing. --NeilN talk to me 00:22, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Just a note to be careful. This article is in British English and uses the spelling "labour" consistently in running text; that's fine.

But there are two important exceptions. First, you never change the spelling of a direct quote. If the quote says "labor", you say "labor", or else you paraphrase and remove the quotation marks.

Second, before I fixed it, there was a footnote with a hyperlink to a website of the Smithsonian Institution. The Smithsonian's URL used "labor", but the hyperlink used "labour", so it was broken. My guess is that someone just went through and did a global replace at some point. Please don't do that. It's fine to scan through from time to time and make sure the article keeps the British spelling, but you have to do it in a way that takes the exceptions into account. --Trovatore (talk) 21:02, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Another exception: Proper names. For example Labor Day (when referring to the American holiday) and National Child Labor Committee. --Trovatore (talk) 23:24, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

South Sudan

I corrected the Child Labour Convention part of the article.

It said South Sudan didn't ratify the Convention yet, but it is not a party to the convention according to https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=IV-11&chapter=4&lang=en. Other articles have sources such as http://www.unicef.org/media/media_78732.html?p=printme that claim South Sudan is the 195th participant (yet the un.org page states 194). I'm also not sure whether Somalia did or didn't ratify the Convention: some say it did but only domestically. As far as I can tell, that means that, officially, Somalia didn't ratify the Convention. Olivier Diotte (talk) 17:48, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Child Work merger

I think the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Child Work was too brief and should be reviewed. Child Work and Child labour are different concepts. The former describes work which is beneficial to children while the latter describes work which is harmful to children. Biscuittin (talk) 11:44, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 June 2015

in our india the most common cases in child labour are in delhi sides.This information is very important to whole over the world — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.59.208.30 (talk) 08:16, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

New Additions

Although I have the whole article posed here, I check on the talk page and no major changes occur a lot. This is a pretty quiet page. So as I update my Sandbox I will continue to check the current article to make sure no major changes have been made that would substantially change my editing process.

My five substantial changes:

- Edit the whole article for grammar issues using Grammarly to help maintain a consistence and just clean up the article. -Created a new section called "Child Labour Laws by Country" -Rearranged the article to included Colonial empires, Switzerland, and the Soviet Union in my new section. -I also edited those three sections and determined what information I needed to add for each one. -Colonial Empires Section -Add New Information about child labour during the time listed. -What is identified as a colonial empire? -Switzerland -Add new information about child labor, such as when the current law was passed and how it happened. -The Soviet Union -Add information on child labour that occurred before 1922. -I also added a section for Latin America and India. -I will add information on child labour in the past, when current labour laws were passed and why, and what child labour is like now. -This is where a majority of my new material will go. This is what I will be working on this most in the coming week. Asievers4 (talk) 01:01, 23 October 2015 (UTC)AS Asievers4 (talk) 00:59, 23 October 2015 (UTC)AS — Preceding unsigned comment added by Asievers4 (talk • contribs) 00:55, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Be sure to look at British spelling conventions - don't change without consulting. I look forward to seeing your updates. Have you been able to find the facts you listed here?Prof.Vandegrift (talk) 18:26, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 November 2015 - adding a new subtitle to Child Labour Laws and Initiatives

Throughout the years there have been many initiatives to try and eliminate the use of child labor in all facets of production. Some of these initiatives have succeeded and others have failed. One initiative in particular was found to of failed when looked at by a third party. This information is not found on the Child Labour Wikipedia article and the knowledge of the failed initiative should be known to the readers of the Child Labour Wikipedia article. The current laws and initiatives section on the wikipedia article mainly focuses on international laws and a few initiatives which encompass all facets of child labor and have been enforced in many countries. While the Wikipedia article does have a section where it breaks down Child Labour Incidents, there is no mention of Pakistan or the soccer ball industry. By adding a new section called, “Failed ‘Foul Ball’ Initiative” under the title “Child Labour Laws and Initiatives” in the “Child Labour” Wikipedia article, the reader will get a better understanding of the tried and failed attempt of the International Labor Organization to eliminate the use of children in the soccer ball industry in Pakistan. It will also inform the reader of the many issues that arise when trying to eliminate a problem such as child labour. Lastly, it will briefly educate the reader of the issue with soccer ball industry in Pakistan. Overall, this will be a positive and informative addition to the Wikipedia article.

What I am requesting to be added:

<Copyvio redacted>

 [1]

Alexlang10 (talk) 00:33, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Child Labor in the Soccer Ball Industry. (1999, February 1). Retrieved October 26, 2015.

Semi-protected edit request on 7 November 2015

Child labour incidents
Recycling of batteries

<Copyvio redacted>

[1]

File:Reclycling batteries.jpg
Recycling batteries in Calcutta, India

Ilsederouw (talk) 11:11, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Child Labour & recycling of batteries

History of child labour

I have had a bit of a crack at the early history of child labour. I'll try to get back to it. I think it needs a lot more structure. At present it is just a series of anecdotes about horrendous working conditions. It could be much more structured around the developments in child labour, when it became worse, how and when it was regulated. The article doesn't even mention Lord Shaftesbury!!! I would greatly welcome any assistance.Mozzie (talk) 13:26, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

brazil section

the brazil section of child labour by country starts with "Child labour has been a consistent struggle for children in Brazil ever since the country was colonized on April 22nd, 1550 by Pedro Álvares Cabral." this is a huge mistake, since brazil wasn't colonized by Cabral, who was a navigator that died around 1520. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.58.128.34 (talk) 18:52, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 January 2016

Re:Adding a Northern Ireland paragraph. It would be good to point out that unlike in England, the minimum working age is 13 due to the fact that the country's main industry is agriculture. It would also be nice to point out that children working in NI up to the age of 16 do not have a set minimum wage and do not have to be registered as workers within businesses Citation: http://www.nidirect.gov.uk/employment-rights-for-young-people 86.170.161.47 (talk) 18:38, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Note: - Unsure about this. Would like to see some consensus first, but leaving it open for another editor to take a look. --allthefoxes (Talk) 06:16, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. It may be a small point of concern, yet I for one wonder how many other countries could also be represented in an article like this, and should all those countries be included or should the article be limited in scope?  Be prosperous! Paine  00:48, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

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Potential positives of children working

I created this section following the closure of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Child Work. I personally do not think it was wise to merge the article here as this is a well developed article and that one was a essay, but process is process. I have done the best I can with the information (it seemed to be mainly talking about positives of child labour so I named the section accordingly). I have not checked the sources to verify the information and it still reads to much like an essay to my mind. As the merge process is now complete, regular editors can edit it like normal now (including removing, moving and trimming) it if that is the best course for this article. Pinging @Rhododendrites: as they were the sole merge voter and may have had other ideas on how this was supposed to be merged. AIRcorn (talk) 08:54, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

@Aircorn: Thanks for the ping and for attempting the merge. My "merge selectively" was based on seeing that the nominated article used several reliable sources, but that it was first and foremost a duplicate, and also written like an essay. I'm perfectly content to defer to you and/or other editors more familiar with this page to make the call as to what that merge should look like. As the AfD was almost a year ago I don't quite remember what, if anything, jumped out as mergeworthy, so I don't have any strong feelings. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 13:31, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
The first time I read the page was when I made the merge so I would not consider myself familiar with this page. I am just working through a backlog at afd. In my opinion the section I just merged does not improve this article, which I think is an unintended or at least unrealised consequence of some merges. Will respond at your talk page in more detail on merge !votes in general. AIRcorn (talk) 06:49, 23 April 2016 (UTC)


Switzerland

There is undue weight on Switzerland, Switzerland being a small country with few child labour.Sarcelles (talk) 18:15, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

How many lines should the subsection have?

Kind regards,Sarcelles (talk) 17:21, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

References for further work on this article

Here are some reference that may be of use to future people working on this article:

  1. The ILO’s Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138) (http://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C138)
  2. The Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182) (http://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C182)
  3. The ILO’s Tripartite Declaration of Principles concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy of 1977
  4. The 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda (http://www.ilo.org/global/topics/sdg-2030/lang--en/index.htm)

DStrassmann (talk) 15:00, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Non-exploitative labour in Indigenous communities

I posted as a reply to almasmit already, but figure I'll put here too. There is information that non-exploitative labour can benefit child development, specifically in Indigenous communities. I also have a couple cites on the ILO's understanding of such practices. May I have access to add such notes to the page? Rmroush (talk) 21:29, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Means you are saying that child labor is good!!? Wikibhushan (talk) 17:14, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Friedman on child labour

"According to Milton Friedman, before the Industrial Revolution virtually all children worked in agriculture. During the Industrial Revolution many of these children moved from farm work to factory work. Over time, as real wages rose, parents became able to afford to send their children to school instead of work and as a result child labour declined, both before and after legislation.[26]"

However, I can't seem to find any essay by Friedman discussing this issue. The source is utterly unhelpful, backing up the second sentence rather than the first. Is there an actual source for this? (124.122.172.156 (talk) 18:48, 22 October 2009 (UTC))

What source you are saying that child labor is good?? How bad. Evey child has the right to study instead of working. If he or she is happy then it is not child labour then it is good. But either of this case. Child labor is bad. Wikibhushan (talk) 17:17, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Is we are really talking about child labour?

What child labour mean. It means that the child is forced to or helplessly has to work. That is child labour. If he or she is doing work for his home or is happy doing some work then it is not child labour. According to me. Consider your opinion guys. Wikibhushan (talk) 17:20, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Please note that Wikipedia is not a forum. Talk pages are for discussing improvements to articles. RivertorchFIREWATER 21:00, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

ILO statistics out of date

The statistics on this page are from an ILO report from 2002 and very out of date. The ILO came out with a new report on child labour in 2017 covering 2012-2016. I will be updating the table to reflect a more current picture of child labour rates. Funfactsandwheretofindthem (talk) 13:20, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 October 2018

In the ‘Causes of child labour’ section, I would suggest including the following sentence referring to this 2017 study, which combines quantitative and qualitative methods, and would enrich the article: A broad range of factors – on the demand- and supply-side and at the micro and macro levels – can affect child labour; a 2016 study, combining quantitative with qualitative methods, argues that structural, geographic, monetary, demographic, cultural, seasonal and school-supply factors can simultaneously influence whether children work or not, questioning thereby the common assumption that monetary poverty is the most important cause.[1] Laboureconomics (talk) 19:53, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Krauss, Alexander. (2016). "Understanding child labour beyond the standard economic assumption of monetary poverty" (PDF). Cambridge Journal of Economics (Oxford University Press), Vol 41, 2(1).
 Not done: The phrase "...questioning thereby the common assumption that monetary poverty is the most important cause" does not describe in what way the questioning occurs nor does it explain how the study of Ghanaians employed in agriculture challenges these assumptions.  Spintendo  12:03, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Britain

The section on child labour in Britain is very poorly written and all the references are to a single source, eds.a.ebscohost.com, which is a dead link. The section needs to be rewritten based on reliable sources - Epinoia (talk) 21:15, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_labour_law_in_the_United_Kingdom references The Employment of Children Act 1903 as a major shift in all areas of employment for children rather than 1966. Not sure which is right as that page also doesn't reference very well. - Banzivar (talk) 18:20, 28 June 2019 (UTC+1)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 April 2019

In the section ‘Causes of child labour’ I suggest including (for example, as the first sentence) the following sentence in order to provide a broad overview of the range of causes for child labour - which is presently lacking on this Wiki page:

A broad range of factors – on the demand- and supply-side and at the micro and macro levels – can affect child labour; a 2016 study, combining quantitative with qualitative methods, argues that structural, geographic, monetary, demographic, cultural, seasonal and school-supply factors can simultaneously influence whether children work or not, suggesting that in certain agricultural societies monetary poverty may not always be the most important cause but rather factors such as the structure of the economy, social norms and no returns to rural basic education.[1]

 Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. Given this has been hanging out in the semi-protected edit request backlog for a month now, I'm going to decline this request without prejudice to a positive consensus for the change. Please feel free to request a WP:3O or leave a note on a WikiProject talk page. Izno (talk) 00:20, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Krauss, Alexander. (2016). "Understanding child labour beyond the standard economic assumption of monetary poverty" (PDF). Cambridge Journal of Economics (Oxford University Press), Vol 41, 2(1).

Potential New Page: Child Labour in Ecuador

Hi there! I'm currently considering creating a Child Labour in Ecuador page for a class project as this currently does not exist. Specifically, I plan on discussing the history of child labor in Ecuador, detailed data about this issue, how the environment affects children who work, and government actions and plans to address this issue. This article did a great job in introducing this issue, especially when it talked about the environmental issues that affect children who work in Ecuador. I plan on using many of the articles about child labour in various countries as examples. Additionally, I plan on providing a link to this new article on this page in the Ecuador section. Please feel free to check out my User Page for more information about my interests and potential resources I plan on using. I'm open to any suggestions so let me know what you think about my ideas! Happy editing! Prashanth314 (talk) 02:04, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 February 2020

change the source 70.175.130.96 (talk) 22:43, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Can I Log In (talk) 22:55, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Change image in lead section

Would anyone object if I swapped the image in the lead section with a current one (from developing countries) rather than a historical one from Europe? On first glance, this article appears Europe/UnitedStates-Centric with the feeling of "child labour is something of the past". Or alternatively we could have a little collage in the lead, showing a picture from Europe (historical) and one from Global South (current). EMsmile (talk) 14:30, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 August 2020

Nestle uses child labour to produce chocolate in west Africa it's chocolate troll house and kit kat etc is made from child labour sourced chocolate I want uk to fine nestle for child labour Wjqx (talk) 14:27, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. @Wjqx. Seagull123 Φ 16:28, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Asievers4.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 17:25, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

negatives

I noticed there was a section discussing the positives of child labor, but not one highlighting the negatives. There are sections regarding the elimination of it and laws passed to make that happen in some countries, but nowhere really talks about the negatives. Maybe we should add that in! Corawinkelman (talk) 22:32, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

This article needs to decide what it's about

Is it about children working in general, or is it about "Child labour" as defined to include solely negative examples? --Eldomtom2 (talk) 11:49, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 18 March 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Speedy close, unanimous opposition. When proposing an ENGVAR change, nominations should at least address WP:RETAIN and explain why it should be overturned regardless. SnowFire (talk) 20:42, 19 March 2022 (UTC) (non-admin closure)

Child labour → Child labor – American english is more common name Jishiboka1 (talk) 02:10, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Change name

Change the title to Child labor. Jishiboka1 (talk) 01:18, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Why the misspelling? British English always uses "labour". Dimadick (talk) 10:07, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

India Education Program course assignment

This article was the subject of an educational assignment supported by Wikipedia Ambassadors through the India Education Program.

The above message was substituted from {{IEP assignment}} by PrimeBOT (talk) on 19:56, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Labour hours of children in Victorian era Britan

The article states in the section History that "working hours were long: builders worked 64 hours a week in the summer and 52 hours in winter, while servants worked 80-hour weeks" and uses as a reference Pal, Jadab Kumar; Chakraborty, Sonali; Tewari, Hare Ram; Chandra, Vinod (March 2016). "The working hours of unpaid child workers in the handloom industry in India". International Social Science Journal. 66 (219–220): 197–204.

The article does not mention any numbers for child labour hours in the Vicotrian era. 146.52.107.160 (talk) 08:11, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Inappropriate Tone In The "Potential Benefits" Section

Currently the section titled "Potential Benefits" is written in a tone that is entirely inappropriate for an encyclopedia, and the phrasing seems to favor looser child labor restrictions.

The section at present (09th of May 2023, 22:00 GMT+05:30)

"The term child labour can be misleading when it confuses harmful work with employment that may be beneficial to children. It can also ignore harmful work outside employment and any benefits children normally derive from their work. Domestic work is an example: all families but the rich must work at cleaning, cooking, caring, and more to maintain their homes. In most families in the world, this process extends to productive activities, especially herding and various types of agriculture, and to a variety of small family businesses. Where trading is a significant feature of social life, children can start trading in small items at an early age, often in the company of family members or of peers. Work is undertaken from an early age by vast numbers of children in the world and may have a natural place in growing up. Work can contribute to the well-being of children in a variety of ways; children often choose to work to improve their lives, both in the short- and long-term. At the material level, children's work often contributes to producing food or earning income that benefits themselves and their families; and such income is especially important when the families are poor. Work can provide an escape from debilitating poverty, sometimes by allowing a young person to move away from an impoverished environment. Young people often enjoy their work, especially paid work, or when work involves the company of peers. Even when work is intensive and enforced, children often find ways to combine their work with play. While full-time work hinders schooling, empirical evidence is varied on the relationship between part-time work and school. Sometimes even part-time work may hinder school attendance or performance. On the other hand, many poor children work for resources to attend school. Children who are not doing well at school sometimes seek more satisfactory experience in work. Good relations with a supervisor at work can provide relief from tensions that children feel at school and home. In the modern world, school education has become so central to society that schoolwork has become the dominant work for most children, often replacing participation in productive work. If school curricula or quality do not provide children with appropriate skills for available jobs or if children do nor have the aptitude for schoolwork, school may impede the learning of skills, such as agriculture, which will become necessary for future livelihood." 112.134.164.173 (talk) 16:34, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

The § Potential positives section was merged from Child Work in 2016, after the article was nominated for deletion (see Talk:Child labour/Archive 1#Potential positives of children working). I agree that the section is written like a personal essay or reflection, with undue weight on minority views, and not in an appropriate encyclopedic tone. Two editors in the previous discussion I linked to both expressed negative opinions about the content of the section, with User:Aircorn specifically stating, In my opinion the section I just merged does not improve this article.
I suggest deleting the section entirely, unless an editor with expertise in this area steps in and rewrites it in an encyclopedic tone from a neutral point of view. 2602:FC24:13:1:E4F7:9065:0:1 (talk) 16:01, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
I don't see it as inappropriate tone, and it appears to be reasonably sourced, thought the last sentence seems only to be true for undeveloped countries. I support keeping it. The statements may need to be verified as to whether they accurately paraphrase their sources, I have not looked into that. Many sentences seem overly broad as there will be huge differences between the benefits/negatives of work in industrialized countries as opposed to subsistence farming communities. ---Avatar317(talk) 05:51, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
There are definitely sections that do not meet the appropriate definition as defined here in my opinion.
Furthermore, some sections make statements that are not relevant to the topic and are only present as a defense for child labor more than pointing out any potential benefit
"Even when work is intensive and enforced, children often find ways to combine their work with play"
This sentence does not point out any potential benefits of child work, but rather acts as defense of forced child labor. The sole purpose of this sentence is to soften the image of enforced child labor and it does not provide any useful information related to the subtopic.
The sentence that precedes this sentence talks about how children potentially might enjoy their work is also not written in an appropriate tone as it is phrased as a definite statement, instead of being phrased like "Some studies suggest children may potentially enjoy their work...."
The same can be said about the entirety of this section.
The other thing to be mentioned here is this section focuses more on child work that would not fall under the definition of child labor as defined above in this article.(For reference, child labor is defined as "the exploitation of children through any form of work that deprives them of their childhood" in the article) M. Adelina (talk) 14:55, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
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