At the age of seventeen, Min Min was promised a well paying job and a better life. He boarded a boat that was supposed to take him from Myanmar to Thailand, but did not realize until later that he had been tricked. He was sold to an Indonesian fishing boat, where he worked for three years. In addition to refusing to meet his basic needs, his owners made him work overnight and without any safety equipment. His slavers threatened him and told him that if he ever attempted escape, torture and an agonizing death would be awaiting him. Min Min was eventually able to escape and return home to his family and native country.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that 1.2 million children around the world are being trafficked for economic
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There are many ways we consciously and unconsciously benefit from child exploitation. First, many people from developed countries travel to poorer areas for child sex tourism. It was found that in southeast Asia, most of the tourists that went to child brothels were from countries like Japan, America, and South Korea. Second, we buy products that are made by child laborers on a daily basis. It is important that we research and think about where the things we buy come from. Companies like Nike, Godiva, and Hershey have all been exposed and linked to child labor scandals. When we consume food and clothing from companies that use child labor, we have the blood of young children on our hands. Finally, we must expose corruption in companies, governments, and law enforcement agencies. How can we ever hope for child labor to stop if those that are supposed to enforce the law are breaking it? By bringing to light the problems in our society and government, we can help emancipate children from exploitation. Clearly, child exploitation is a difficult problem to fix. However, the children of today are responsible for the future of society. How can we hope to have a bright future if those who will build it are being exploited? Children should not be forced to harvest crops; they should be harvesting the fruits of knowledge. Children should not be forced to sell their bodies; they should be strengthening their minds. Children should not be fishermen; children should be children. Let’s speak up for those who do not have the voice to speak up for
Kelley explains, “We have...two million children under the age of sixteen years who are earning their bread”. By her use of statistics, she has grabbed the audience’s attention. With large numbers like two million, one already begins to question child labor. Kelley then goes on to
Kelley asks her audience to consider, “What can we do to free our consciences?”. By assuming that the audience feels guilty about their children working nonstop throughout the night, Kelley creates a feel of initiative by inducing the audience to want to free themselves from their guilt. Whereas for the people in the audience who do not feel guilty, Kelley hints that they aren’t doing what it best for their children or country, establishing a sense of shame, as well as giving Kelley the authoritative voice at the convention. In addition, while much of the audience may have enjoyed the freedom of being a child, the fact that their children will never enjoy those freedoms also frightens the audience, causing them to trust in Kelley and in her ideas to stop child labor. With this rhetorical question, Kelley overall strengthens her argument, adding a sense of credibility and showing the power the audience has to stop child
Not knowing whether the clothing you are wearing, or the food you are eating was made possible by child labor is alarming. I understand the need for children to “help in the household”; however helping and demanding children to work for long periods of time is completely different. Boycotting Hanes for example, is not the real answer to the problem. The root cause of the problem with child labor is poverty. What we need is to find a way to help the families that are so desperate for monetary assistance to survive, they are willing to send their children into the workplace.
“Child labor and poverty are inevitably bound together and if you continue to use the labor of children as the treatment for the social disease of poverty, you will have both poverty and child labor to the end of time” (Grace Abbott). The issue of child labor has been around for centuries. Its standing in our world has been irrevocably stained in our history and unfortunately, our present. Many great minds have assessed this horrific issue and its effect on our homes, societies, and ultimately, our world.
Child labor is something people in the United States might think of as awful, but for families in countries like China it is a way of life. Name brand companies, for example Nike, have their products made overseas often using children to do the work. The use of child labor in other countries for Nike brings up the debate on whether or not the United States should buy products that have been produced by children. The United States should not buy products manufactured with the use of child labor because of the unfair wages they get paid and bad working conditions. Some may argue that by putting children to work it is lowering the unemployment rates in countries, the morals of buying products produced by young teenagers is just flat out wrong.
Human trafficking produces billions of dollars in profit every year, it is right behind drug trafficking as the most lucrative form of crime throughout the world. (DHS website). Victims of human trafficking rarely come forward due to the threats of murder, threats of killing their loved ones/friends, as well as having nowhere else to go because they have been ostracized from their own family and their “pimp” is their family. Another issue of why victims do not come forward is that they are afraid of law enforcement so they may go to jail, etc. (DHS website)
The issue of child labor has long been a subject of discussion that -------. In her cogent essay, “Live Free and Starve,” directed at liberals and those in support of a bill passed by the U.S. congress that bans the import of goods from countries that have child labor, Chitra Divakaruni reasons on the subject of child labor in developing countries. In a persuasive tone, Divakaruni contends that the aforementioned bill is misguided in its intent. She argues that while the intentions behind the bill are good-willed, the bill would not be effective in its goal of helping the children. Divakaruni offers a unique perspective on child labor in foreign countries to increase awareness on how there is more to the situation of child labor than meets the eye.
Even though most people would think that the passing of the bill is a step forward for children’s rights, Divakaruni asserts that it is actually doing more harm than good. She depicts the children working in
It is the world’s fastest growing global crime that people are being bought, sold and smuggled for sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, bonded labour and even organ sacrifice ending up with death. The most tragic fact is 26% of the victims that are sucked into trafficking are children. In this violation of human rights’ grave, where persons have a price tag, anyone can be a victim. Human trafficking doesn’t discriminate on age, gender, race or religion. It is happening to humans, just like
Human trafficking is one of the largest and most prevalent issues that affects all walks of life both domestically and internationally. Human trafficking is not only a horrendous crime but a major human rights violation, impacting public health. “Human trafficking is a form of modern day slavery” . Human trafficking is the taking of a person with the intent to exploit them through, sexual exploitation, forced labor, slavery/servitude, or the removal of organs.
The subject of sweatshop and child labor is one of great controversy. The first thought to mind when speaking of sweatshops is probably a vision of sketchy factories in far off Third World countries such as Bangladesh or China working their employees 15+ hours a day in cramped up in a dust-filled space for little wages. Not in America though, right? Most Americans would be horribly upset if they found out they had been unknowingly supporting a business that uses sweatshops to produce its merchandise. Odds are though, businesses that exploit such labor are being supported in every shopping trip a person takes whether it be shopping for groceries, clothes, jewelry, or athletic gear.
It is a significant public health issue as well as human rights violation that is affecting millions of children globally, which is believed to serve as transit and destination, places of origin of children who are trafficked (Ottisova, 2015). Furthermore, Busutill (2018) suggest that child trafficking happen for a number of reasons such as lack of education, poverty due to poor family background, humanitarian crisis which is the cause of natural disasters. According to the United Nations on Drugs and Crime (2018), child trafficking is a global problem which is one of the most world shameful crime, which affects the lives of millions of children around the world and robbed them of their dignity. It is estimated that 5.5 million children are trafficked globally in situations of forced labour (Ottisova,
I. Trafficking in persons is a serious crime and a violation of human rights. II. Every year, thousands of men, women and children fall into the hands of traffickers, in their own countries and abroad. III. Almost every country in the world is affected by trafficking, whether as a country of origin, transit or destination for victims.
But not all work done by children should be accepted as child labor. In other words, if a work doesn’t harm child’s health or personal development (educational issues), it is generally accepted as something positive and useful. Such activities develop children’s skills, provide experience and formulate them to be part of society. The term “Child Labor” is when children do work that damages their health or hamper mental or physical
Child trafficking has been a serious problem plaguing the world and it is still ongoing today. This essay, however, will be focusing on forced child labour. Child labour explained by the ILO’s (International Labour Organization) Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, is the exploitation and “enslavement of anyone under the age of 18.