If you thought that your child is too young for a part-time job, what would you say if you have lived in some of 11 countries that have the most child labor?
In ancient Greece, children are not considered to be persons until they reach the age of 18. Until then, they are just tiny creatures someone needs to take care of and after they were old enough, they started working along with their family. The day they turned 18, they became the official residents with rights.
After a while, people started paying attention to their education, but the whole relationship between adults and kids remained the same and it wasn’t until the 18th century when people started paying attention to these tiny humans’ feelings and mental health.
The interesting thing is that before this all started, children were the biggest blessing and Romans, for example, hired tutors for their children that had to follow children anywhere and raise them properly along with providing them the proper education. No one actually knows how humanity went from this period that was more than 2,000 years ago to the one that started 4-5 centuries ago. Luckily for children, the 18th century was the revelation for adults and they got their lives back.
Unfortunately, not every part of the world passed the 18th century in this matter. There are some parts of the world that still uses children as the cheap working force and don’t allow them to have a proper childhood, but make them work in unhealthy, unsafe environment in order to get the most profit for themselves. So why do people do that? Well, do the math. Children are either obligated to work or their parents don’t have enough money for living. That’s why children seek for whatever job they can get for the lowest salary. On the other hand, employers would have to pay more than a double to adult to do the same job, which means that they would spend the extra cash and, after the product was sold, he would get the lower profit.
While the majority of countries have laws forbidding employers to hire children if the environment seems to be unhealthy for children or the work by itself is too hard for them, depending on the age, these countries that I am about to present have zero interest in launching some laws on their own regarding this subject. While in the US children under the age of 15 are not allowed even to be hired to take care of the lawns, children for Ecuador are not just allowed to do hard work, but they are forced to it. The main workplace for them is the banana plantation, where they are exposed to the strong heat, where they have to spend around 12 hours a day and every child older than 8 is exposed to dangerous pesticides while doing their job. But it only gets worse. If children don’t work on the plantation, it only means that he or she would be used for sexual exploitation. According to the provided data, only 33.3% of all children in Ecuador are protected by their parents and not made for some kind of labor.
This is only one example of the children’s labor, but it only gets worse. Before we proceed, make sure you are calmed down enough and ready for everything you will face here. And now proceed to 11 countries that have the most child labor.
