Child Labour, Necessity or Crime Against Humanity

2153 Words9 Pages
Is ‘Child Labour’ a necessity or a crime against Humanity? Child labour is a crime against humanity that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity. While many of the families who are unfortunately involved with child labour see it as a necessity to survive, child labour is a serious breach of human rights. Across the world, millions of children do extremely hazardous work in harmful conditions, which prevents them from getting an education and is harmful to their physical, mental, and social development. Every day, an estimated 168 million boys and girls work as child labourers, in the farms, fields, factories, homes, streets and battlefields. They face hunger, hard work, ill-health and poverty (Global March, 2013). This essay will explore how children being used as child soldiers, farm labourers and domestic workers deprives them of their human rights. Child Labour is never justified regardless of economic circumstances. Parents forcing their children to work based on their financial needs or companies hiring child labourers for profit driven motives are wrong (UNICEF, 2014). There is no proven link between child labour and economic growth. A developed country should be built on education, skills, finance and changing technology, not cheap labour (UNICEF, 2014). It is estimated that more than 300,000 children under the age of 18 are currently fighting in conflicts around the world and hundreds of thousands more are members of armed forces who could be sent into combat at any time (End Child Labour, 2014). In many countries child labour is mainly an agricultural issue. Worldwide 60% of all child labourers in the age group 5-17 years’ work in agriculture, including farming, fishing, aquaculture, forestry and livestock. This amounts to over 98 million boys and girls (Bernd Seiffert, 2013). Child domestic workers are the world’s
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