Do you have a paper route? Do you baby sit? How about chores — do you make your bed, feed the dog, or mow the lawn? Sure, all those jobs are work, and kids should be doing things to help out at home. But suppose you had a real job, one that you had to do all day long or into the evening? How would you go to school? When would you play with your friends or participate in sports?
Many children around the world are working at jobs, just like adults. In fact, 110 million kids under the age of 12 work long hours every day. Some of the work is very dangerous, like mining or being a soldier. Some work is bad for a child's health, like bending over a carpet loom for many hours. Some work is bad for a child's future, like working all day out in a field so there is no time for school. It happens in many countries around the world, and it even happens right here in the United States.
These days it's against the law for kids to work all day in the United States. But that wasn't always true. Before 1938, children as young as six years old did some pretty scary work, like cleaning chimneys, working on ships, or running heavy machinery. They also sold things on the streets, delivered telegrams, or worked as servants. With no time to go to school, many kids were poor. With no education, they stayed poor when they grew up.
Our laws don't allow kids to work, but there is a loophole — they can work on farms. The loophole was supposed to allow kids from farming families to help out on small farms after school. But many migrant kids in the United States work on giant farms. These farms are owned by companies, not families. Migrant kids may miss the beginning of the school year because they're still picking crops, or they may leave before the school year is over. Some have to get up as early as 2:00 a.m. to ride on a bus out to the fields. They're too tired to go to school.
Kids shouldn't work like this, right? It's not fair, and it's certainly not right! But it's not such an easy problem to solve. Some families are so poor that they need the money a child can bring home. Other families may take out a loan just to live. A child may have to work for years making just pennies a day and only be able to pay back a few dollars.
Child laborers may have made many things you have right in your own home. Spin the globe to find out what some of those things are.
See pictures of children like you working in the 1900's
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