Background:

China over the past few years has had the largest growing economy in the world. They are the 3rd largest trading partner and have gone from a strictly communist nation to an open borders trading giant. China is known for making great goods for cheap prices. Although China is seen by the world as a country that has grown tremendously, they have the largest percentage of child labor throughout the world.

According to the International Labor Organization estimated that 250 million children between the ages of 5 to 14 in developing countries work. Out of those 250 million children 61% of them live in China. Since, China is growing so fast so is the child labor percentile. Many kids in smaller villages mostly around Hong Kong are dropping out of school in order to work to help the family financially. In China there is a law that requires children to attend school until they reach 16 years of age. They are also not allowed to have full-time jobs. The Chinese government on the other hand does little to stop privately owned companies and commercial companies from using child labor. Toy production, textiles, construction, food production, and light mechanical work are the industries that use child labor the most. Children are used to work because they have smaller hands then adult so they are capable of working on details and they know little about safety around the factory and are therefore are not afraid to get closer to machinery. Children also are cheaper and more obedient than adults. On perfect example of why companies use children would be about a school that used students to make fireworks. “A recent report described an explosion at a fireworks factory in Hebei that killed one child and injured 34 schoolgirls ranging from 11 to 13 years of age. Investigators found that the school children had been forced by their teachers to work for slave wages making firecrackers.” The students promised about 2 cents for making one firecracker, but in instead were paid about 0.3 cents. There was another explosion in March of 2001 that left 42 children killed. The school was blown up because they use children to make fireworks to keep their prices low. “The younger students are required to assemble at least 1,000 fireworks a day while the older children, fifth-graders, are required to make ten times that many.” Children will work 10-14 hours a day and are paid half of an adult. In many areas of China children make up to 20% of the work force. According to the Chinese Ministry of Labor, child labor is a very serious problem in China. But The China Youth News says 44 out of the 206 foreign companies or joint ventures in Shenzhen employ children 16 yrs or less.

China is a growing economy and may in time be the largest beating out the U.S. But China is achieving this by employing children to do the dirty work. They pay them less and make them work more and in dangerous jobs.

Decribing the Issue:

Though the number of children working in China is not known exactly, it is impossible to deny accusations that minors are working in the export industries. The Chinese government has constantly repressed its people so no information would be obtained, but an official from the Chinese Ministry of Labor has finally confessed that child labor is “very serious” in China. In fact, observers have come to the conclusion that the employment of children has increasingly grown because of the high dropout rate from school and the growing investment of foreign companies in the export-oriented enterprises. The industries in which these children work at range from footwear, electronics, and handicrafts but the conditions in which they work in are absurd. In many factories, the children are exposed to life threatening situations and are forced to work up to 16 hours a day.

Why is this an ongoing problem? The main reason behind this problem is the concern of the rural families in maintaining and sustaining their relatively large families. Parents find it helpful when their kids are helping them pay the increasing school tuition for their children and all other extra bills. Another reason for this great violation of human right is because many of these children would rather make some type of money than just go to school and hope for a better future. Most of the children in the factories believe that they are going to be paid a good amount of money for their work, but end up finding out that it’s a lie. After such discovery, the kids have a difficult time leaving their working jobs because the factory owners need the greatest amount of workers to maintain a steady production for the export companies. In 2007 shocking news came out stating that a group of people had kidnapped a couple of children to work as slaves in a brick kiln. The report showed not only cases of kidnap, but also of restriction of personal freedom, forced labor, child labor, abuse, and even murder of workers. The demand of child labor is so great because the children are better apt for the job with their smaller and more delicate hands as well as their undamaged eyesight. To add on to this problem the rapid expansion of foreign businesses in the country has forced the number of labor needed in factories to increase. This sudden growth is explained by the cheap labor that China offers and its growing economy throughout the years after the years of Mao. From 1960 to 1966 China developed a great economy based on the shift from heavy industry to domestic goods where it became the fifth most powerful nation with nuclear weapons. Poverty in the agricultural parts of China has also forced many people to move to the urban areas in search of better lives. The tendency has been that the more labor needed, the more children are found working illegally. The cause of this problem is China’s lack of ability to keep up with its economic growth by offering its people a more affordable education to keep its children away from these factories.

The Communists have numerously said that the customs of the Old China were gone, but prostitution, gambling, drug-addiction, vagrancy, venereal disease, begging, the selling of brides, female infanticide, and child labor still happen today. These practices have greatly grown after the reforms launched by Mao were abandoned. Ever since the control of the party decreased in relation to its invasion of its citizen’s life, the people have returned to the “bad” customs. But it is not the peoples’ fault of rebounding to such a life. Even though the government has laws against child labor, they do little to prevent it. Over 50% of all toys sold by Wal-Mart, Mattel, Hasbro, Disney and Toy’s R Us are made by children and almost everything that says “Made in China” was made by a young child.

The political and economical implications of this issue are great. These implications end up having such a great impact that people aren’t able to suddenly end child labor. The political implication behind this is that China would end up destroying many of its ties with the world’s greatest nations. This would happen because China is able to offer the cheapest labor to these countries so that they can sell their products for a much higher price. By ending child labor completely, the price of labor would be higher and the relationship with these other great nations who have industries in China would be somewhat ruined. This would effectively affect China’s economy because the nation’s prosperity derives mainly from the large investment of foreign countries. In addition, this would have a social implication because prices would have to go up due to the greater cost of employees to work at these factories. This implication would not only affect the owners of the factories who would have to pay a higher price for their workers, but also the consumers, the nations who are investing in the country, and the government who would have to deal with the increase in prices and the possible decrease of foreign investment. Everyone would end up suffering from this. The increase in price for labor would allow owners to hire a smaller amount of workers which would affect the productivity of the factory. The consumers would be affected in such a way because they would now have to spend more money to buy products made in China. China’s investing nations are also one of the stakeholders because they are the ones putting the money into China and allowing it to grow. By increasing the prices in labor this might cause a conflict between these nations because they would definitely be upset that they would now have to pay more money to get the same amount of work done. Likewise, the government would suffer because less money would be coming into the country. The great problem is that the United States, especially, and China will continue collaborating with each other in order to benefit their economy, because at the end of the day it is all about money and wealth. The two countries will not let this get in the way because they depend on each other to grow. China and the United States need to realize that despite the economic prosperity of both nations, child labor continues to violate the human rights of children and it needs to be stopped.

Solutions:

In order to make SAS more aware of the problem of child labor in China we decided to take a stuffed bear that was made in China to illustrate this growing problem. What we first did was spray paint him red and add four stars beside his eyes so that not only did he represent the Chinese flag, but he also gave off this deadly feeling because of the color red. What we did next was tape his mouth shut because China does its very best to keep this type of information from being published. They know that child labor is against the law and that they are wrong in letting it happen. In addition to this, we tapped his eye shut because the government pretends that they don’t know that this is going on. Despite the laws against child labor they pretend to be blind to it so they don’t have to deal with it. After all this was done we then added a couple of facts about child labor in China on some athletic bandages so that the bear looked all hurt and beat up. Our intention was that when students passed by this bear, they would actually stop to think about what they were doing when they purchased an item made in China. A simple teddy bear made for a child was made by a child.

If we were to rule over a country that had an issue involving Child Labor, we would enforce the mandatory school until 16 stronger. Making sure that families knew that schooling is important. Also we would keep hold inspections of factories in order to make sure that nothing illegal was taking place. One problem that exists now in China is that parents are not looking at the importance of education but only the importance of survival. If we were to fix this problem of child Labor we would have to better the parents pay in order to allow for parents to focus more on how far their kids can go instead of how they are going to pay for their next meal. Also if we ruled another country whose trade was suffering because of China’s cheap prices. We would want the playing field to be leveled. We hope that the world sees what is going on in China and we hope that someone is trying to explain to them how awful these actions are. We feel that all child labor should be illegal in all countries.

Bibliography

Huang, Ying-Jia. "USC US-China Institute." China.Usc.Edu. 04 Mar. 2008. USC. 7 May 2008 http://china.usc.edu/(A(aiOk27LhyAEkAAAAODg5MGY5NTUtZDE0ZS00Mjg2LThjODktZTdlYmZhYzJkZGJkOXAcDW2PmCVuzj04N-M6RwysriM1)S(uczoke45gudw5pnn1j3kwy45))/ShowArticle.aspx?articleID=1021&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1

Pan, Esther. "The U.S.-China Relationship: Policy Goals." Council of Foreign Relations. 11 Nov. 2005. Council of Foreign Relations. 7 May 2008 <http://www.cfr.org/publication/9205/uschina_relationship.html>.

"China." U.S. Department of Labor. 14 May 2008 <http://www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/sweat/china.htm>.

Datong, Li. "The Root of Slave Labour in China." Open Democracy. 26 June 2007. 19 May 2008 <http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy_power/china_inside/slave_labour_china>.

Grau, Megan. "Child Slave Labor in China." IHS Child Slave Labor News. May 2005. 14 May 2008 <http://ihscslnews.org/view_article.php?id=57>.

Moore, Patrick. "Child Labor in China." Open Society Archives. 30 Dec. 1988. 19 May 2008 <http://www.osa.ceu.hu/files/holdings/300/8/3/text/13-14-1.shtml>.

O’Reilly, Kathy. "Made in China." IHS Child Slave Labor News. Nov. 2006. 14 May 2008 <http://ihscslnews.org/view_article.php?id=163>.

 Create your own educational wiki!HelpPublic, not yet premium Privacy Policy RSS