Sonia Fallero, while investigating child labor in India for a book she is writing, uncovered a new, more disturbing trend in the country. Along with the expected stories of abduction and kidnapping, a more common problem is beginning to develop. Children as young as 10 years old are beginning to offer themselves directly to traffickers, because they no longer want to go hungry. Coming from a small town named in Amni village, the child she interviewed lived with his uncle and two siblings. Although his uncle works for a living, they could only afford one meal per day. So instead of going hungry and living a horrific life, he gave himself over to traffickers to work in horrible child labor conditions. The child worked 18 hour per day, 7 day a week shifts in a rice mill and made 800 rupees (around $20 a month).
The problem of child trafficking and child labor are both growing social problems in our society. Millions of children are discovered working in poor conditions every year, found with missing fingers and hunched over with disabilities as result of their work in mills and plants across the world. There are believed to be 153 million working children in Asia alone. This is a global problem because we in industrialized countries strive to get things for the lowest prices possible. Often times this means finding ways to make the product cheaper, which means outsourcing to third world countries. In these countries, it is mostly children making our products and working in horrible conditions all to make sure we get the products we want at a lower and lower price.
http://nytimes.com/2001/09/06/opinion/07iht-edfaleiro07.html?_r
1 comment:
Children should never have to work unless they are on their own. But in this case they are choosing to work to get more money and live easier but no company should let this happen.
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