CHILD LABOR: ITS HARMFUL

EFFECTS ON THE PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL

A Term Paper
Presented to
Prof. Anville Villanueva
Department of English
College of Social Science and Humanities
Mindanao State University
Marawi City

In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirement for the Course
English 2 Bb9 (Writing in Discipline)
1st Semester, A.Y. 2014-2015

By
Blaise G. Ungab
September 2014

CHILD LABOR: ITS HARMFUL

EFFECTS ON THE PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL
Thesis Statement: Child labor nowadays is considered to be a social injustice due to its
harmful effects on the physical and psychological life of the child.
Introduction
Child labor cannot be abolished, instead the government should make a
move to lessen the children working hours. In that case, that did not deprive the children
their rights to education. It cannot limit their ability and their rights as a child.
I. Child Labor
A. Definition
B. Background / History
II. Causes of Child Labor
A. Poverty
B. Family migration from rural to urban areas
III. Effects of Child Labor
A. Physical
B. Psychological
IV. Solutions for Child Labor
A. Increasing family income
B. Declaring free obligatory education for all children
C. Birth control / Family planning
Conclusions
Parents should be the one to find work for the necessity of the family.
Children should be enjoying and playing to enjoy childhood. And also the government
should provide work for those who are unemployed.

INTRODUCTION

The youths are the hope of the Fatherland

-Dr. Jose Rizal

Being a child is a stepping stone to become a youth. Nobody can skip

childhood and directly become a youth.
Children are the sun of the dark future and the hope for a better tomorrow.
Child labor is a kind of work that children do. Being a child laborer at the first place was
not their choice. For example, both parents of the child is a laborer, we can conclude that
perhaps their child would also became a laborer. Children engaged themselves in diverse
form of economic activities because it is their way of living and for fulfilling their
necessities.
Now can you say that it is possible to abolished child labor? If yes, can
you think of possible ways for them to live in this kind of world? How can we expect
them to get the money for their own needs? Besides, being a laborer is a moral job.
As the researcher, she came up a conclusion that we cannot abolish child
labor, because their families cannot fulfill the basic needs which compel them to work at
early age. Instead lets help convince them not to abandon schooling for it is the only way
for them to become a wise man and to become a hope for the Fatherland.

Child Labor

A. Definition
According to ILO (International Labor Organization) Convention, Child
Labor is a kind of work that children should not be doing because they are too young to
work, because it dangerous or otherwise unsuitable for them.
Child labor is often defined as work that deprives children of their
childhood, their potential, and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and
psychological development. It refers to work that is mentally, physically, socially, and
morally dangerous and harmful to children. And it interferes the schooling by depriving
them of the opportunity to attend school, obliging them to leave school prematurely and
requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessive long and heavy
works.
Child labor also involves children being enslave, separated from their
families, exposed to serious illness and left to fend for themselves on the street of large
cities at a very early age.
B. Background / History
There is work that profit children, and there is work that
brings profit only to the employers. The object of employing children is
not to train them, but to get high profits from their works.
--Lewis Hine 1908
Child labor is the act of employing children in order to make them work at
a lower pay. This practice is considered to be exploitative in many countries. Earlier,

child labor was not a big problem as children as young as 4-5 years old would accompany
their parents to aid in agriculture, weaving and other jobs (Pakhare,2011).
Jayashree Pakhare states in her narration in one of her article that:
History has witnessed many children involved in military
campaigns. Although, child labor was not new to the world, it is
believe that during 1780 and 1840, there was a massive increase in
child exploitation. In 1788, more 60% of workers in textile mills of
England and Scotland were children. Many laws were passed to
eradicate child labor, but hardly succeeded. On 1836, the National
Trade Union Convention made the first ever proposal to the
government, stating that a minimum age for work established for
children to work in factories and other jobs. In the same year,
Massachusetts introduced the first ever State law, which required
children below 15 years old, who were working in factories, to
undergo compulsory 3 months of schooling each year.
In addition, gender plays a significant role in determining the different types of of
work done by girls and boys. For example, girls predominate in domestic work, while are
heavily represented in mining and quarrying. Business like to hire children because they
worked in unskilled jobs for lower wages than adults, and their small hands made them
more adept at handling small parts and tools.

Causes of Child Labor

Child labor persists even though laws and standards to eliminate it exist. Current
causes of child labor poverty, limited access to education and family migration from rural
to urban areas.
A. Poverty
Poor children and their families may rely upon child labor in order to improve
their chances attaining basic necessities.
One of the most expected but nonetheless a contentious determinant of child
labor revealed by these studies is poverty. The role of poverty has been the cornerstone of
much of the thinking about child labor. Even in very poor nation, where the child labor is
widespread and human being of all ages are subject to the laws, the children of doctors,
lawyers, professors, and in general the middle classes are not found to be laboring (Basu
and Tzannatos, 2002). It is widely acknowledge that one of the causes of child labor is
poverty. Child labor can never be abolish as long as poverty remains.
B. Family migration from rural to urban areas
Rural to urban migration, like that in many developing countries, is often temporary.
With either children moving along with their parents or being left behind in the
countryside. The vast majority of child labor occurs in rural areas since poverty is very
rampant. Many poor rural families struggle for a better life in urban areas. This pushes
families to force their children to work in order to increase family income and ensure
survival.
According to Hans van de Glind, 2010: Migration serve as a common economic
coping or survival strategy for household in many parts of the world, and can provide

children and their families with new opportunities.

Effects of Child Labor

Child labor deprives a child of a proper childhood. The child also suffers from
personal, physical, and psychological torture. Child labor creates and perpetuates poverty.
It condemns a child to a life of unskilled, badly paid work.
A. Physical
Child labor comes with serious physical health problems which negatively
affect the childrens physical development, especially as major part of the child laborers
come from poor families and malnutrition unfit to face the adversities of working life.
The physical damage largely depends on the job type and number of hours worked.
(Khair, 2005). Children are mostly vulnerable of physical immaturity and the exposure
to unsafe workplace. Moreover, unhealthy working conditions can cause more physical
damage. Almost all child laborers are affected by physical pain during working hours or
afterwards. What makes the situation worse is that the child laborers who suffer from
pain during working hours do not get well treatment to their health problems.
In David Parkers, 2002 Is work that is Safe for Adults also Safe for
Chilren?, he narrates that:
Young children have a lower heat tolerance than adults, in
part because their sweat glands are developing. Workplace heat standards
that are adequate for adults may cause heat stress in children.
When work methods, tools and equipment are designed,
childrens physical propositions are not considered. Working are at a

greater risk of fatigue, injury and accidents because of ill-fitting tools and
safety equipment.
There is clear evidence of physical effects of child labor such as physical
effects of child labor such as physical injuries and disease caused by malnutrition, stress
and direct exposure of to harm as a result of inappropriate clothing. Working conditions
that are safe for adults may not be safe and healthy for children because of physical
differences. The risks are greater for children at many stages of development and may
have long term effects. According to David Parker, 2008: Factors that may increase the
health, safety and developmental risk factors for children include: rapid skeletal growth,
development of organs and tissue, greater risk of hearing loss, developing ability to asses
risk, greater need for food and rest, higher chemical absorption rates, smaller size, lower
heat tolerance.
B. Psychological
Working children are more vulnerable to psychological and social risks
than of physical ones. The reason is that children lack the physical power and
authority to do their jobs, their work is often not seen as productive, and they
are at the lowest grades and level of workers (Woodhead, 1998). A study
found psychological problems are evident among working children compared
to non-working children.
The study recommended that the government and community institutions
that are aware that work constitutes a danger to childs development making
them vulnerable to psychological problems more than others, should make an
effort to reduce child labor as priority of their agendas (Fekaday, Alem,

Hagglof, 2006). These working children have low adaptive skill, low level of
physical health, and use certain unwanted social behaviors. Working children
have mood disorders, anxiety and stress more than non-working children.
Psychological and social risk of child labor can be summarized as
follows: Social isolation and weak emotional connectedness (Woodhead,
2004), risky behaviors such as crime, use of drugs and narcotics (Taroni,
2002), emotional abuse and lack of fair treatment, including phtsical and
sexual abuse (Woodhead, 2004), children who are neglected and discriminated
feel isolated and have less emotional development than non-working children
in the same age (Stegman, 2003), bullying, intolerance as well as rejection
from colleagues and relatives (Woodhead, 2004), lack of job security and
vulnerability to financial exploitation, inability to match between schools and
work that causes anxiety, concentration problems, and ineffective coping
(Woodhead, 2004).
The exposure of children to chemicals such as lead adversely affects the
growth of the nervous system and this affect the well-being of a child (Banks,
Ferretti, & Shuccard, 1997; Levendon, Kinra, Nelcler and Cronin, 2001).

Solutions
We cannot possibly end or eliminate child labor. What we can do is to only
reduce it and prevent it worsen. Child labor is a punishable offense and strict
laws have made against it but there is a need to follow these laws strictly and
every citizen needs to abide the laws sincerely. Education can play a vital role

in stopping child labor and making people aware regarding the benefits of
education over child labor.
A. Increasing Family Incomes
One of the solutions to reduce child labor is to create a minimum family
income. Many families need child labor or they put their kids out on the street or selling
them in order to survive. If we can help these families to come out of poverty and get a
steady money income, more and more children wont have to work in these types of
conditions. However we must consider the fact that the government would be the one
who has to support this system, and they must not be as enthusiastic about supporting
such idea. They may not even have the capability to do so especially if it is a developing
country.
Giving jobs to children relatives. This way the family wont be suffering and
indeed will be very helpful, as adult wages are generally much higher than child wages.
Child labor is associated with the parents working status. If both parents are
working, there is a great likelihood that the family will find the solution through having
their children not to work. So, there should be a national care plan for national care plan
for these families where fathers and mothers who are not working for certain physical
disability. Having a support system and a clear national policy will enable this family not
to send their children to work. Financial care should be emphasizing in any national
programs as these children are coming from poor families and their work were for
supporting their families financially. Moreover, legal and community programs should
support women work that may propose an alternative for child work.
B. Declaring free obligatory education for all children

The determinants of child work and school enrollment are own childs
characteristics. Childrens age and gender are expected to affect their work and
schooling. Beyond a certain age, the older the child, the more likely he or she works and
never mind schooling (Connelly, De Graft and Levison, 1996). Parents education also
affects child labor and school enrollment through several channels. The education of
parents affects their wages rates positively, proxies for their attitudes towards education,
and also may be an input complementary to schooling on their production. All factors
suggest that higher parent education increase school enrollment and reduce child labor.
Education influence children to respond and become skillful. In other words, it
equips the children with the know-how to conquer their environment in order to provide
for their needs. The government shall provide the rights of a child to education, and in
partnership with International Organizations, set and define targets for ensuring education
for all. The aim here is to increase the literacy level cum productivity level of the nation
(Sinha, 2003).
According to Doftori, 2004 Education has a direct link to child labor because
child labor is a symptom of a faculty / deprived educational system. Education is widely
acknowledged as a vehicle for raising national productivity and for poverty reduction.
Thus, people tend to embrace education to the extent that it can help them secure white
collar jobs (White, 1996).
In order for educational policies to achieve their desired goals in terms of
reducing child labor, they must be implementing along with genuine attempts to empower
the populace and free them from poverty.

Examining the impact of food for educations programs on school participation

and other education outcome have considerable limitations. These programs having
modest effects on school participation. The examine of take-home rations distributed
using programs placement as an instrument for receiving the program. They found that
the take home ration reduce child labor.
Basic education refers to early childhood education, primary and lower secondary
education as well as adult literacy. Goals of Education for All Programs are: Expanding
and improving comprehensive early childhood care and education, especially for the most
vulnerable and disadvantaged children, ensuring that all children have access to and
complete, free and compulsory primary education of good quality, improving all aspects
of the quality of education and ensuring excellence of all so that recognized and
measurable learning outcomes are achieved by all, especially in literacy, numeracy, and
essential life skills.
C. Birth control / Family planning
Exposure to family planning is modeled as a reduction in the price of children
since it lowers the fixed cost of raising children, a cost that is independent of the level per
child quality (Becker, 1991; Rosenzweig and Wolpin, 1982). The variation in the
intensity and quality of family planning program intervention between treatment and
control area produces a variation across villages and hence a variation in in the net price
of births. Family planning program experiment is the outreach program where during
home visits, trained female outreach workers deliver contraceptives and information.
Women in various parts of the world have been provided with improved birth
control technologies for the past fifty years, the impact of these policies on the

fertility and health of women and on their lifetime productivity, consumption

opportunities. Women who avoid ill-timed or unwanted births due to a population
program will also be likely to invest more in each of their childrens human capital, and
reducing poverty in the next generation (Schultz, 2005).
This program female outreach workers visited households in these villages once
every two weeks to provide non clinical contraceptives (pills, condoms, and foam tablets)
and administered depomedroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA) injections, which provide
pregnancy protection for a prolonged period of time. The outreach workers also provided
information about the use of these contraceptives and potential side effects (Sinha,
2005).

CONCLUSIONS
The results of child labor force confirm that children from the poorest households
are much more likely to enter the labor force than children from the better-off
households. This support for the widely-held assumption that poverty compels to work.
It also shows that the links between adult employment and child labor support the
theory that children are the last economic resource of the household. Children with the
compulsion of taking up work at early age do not get proper development. It is imperative
to explore a multitude of approaches in order to eventually reach the goal of eliminating
child labor. Many working children, especially girls are prone to sexual abuse and
harassment.
The child labor problems need to be conceived as a broader problem of poverty
and survival techniques. For reducing child labor successfully, it must be accompanied by
alternatives modes of income for those dependent on child labor. Some possible solutions
to reduce child labor are the followings (i) improve basic education (ii) create awareness
among parents about the consequences of risky child labor (iii) accelerate the food for
education program (iv) improved the health services of rural health centers.
Poverty reduction is the key to reducing child labor. And also the government
should provide some compensation to poor parents for sending their children to school.

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