Presents a history of child labor around the world, describing the jobs children were and are forced to do, the ways child labor can be prevented, and the laws being created in underdeveloped countries to prevent such unfair practices.

Despite its decline throughout the advanced industrial nations, child labor remains one of the major social, political, and economic concerns of modern history, as witnessed by the many high-profile stories on child labor and sweatshops in the media today. This work considers the issue in three parts. The first section discusses child labor as a social and economic problem in America from an historical and theoretical perspective. The second part presents child labor as National Child Labor Committee investigators found it in major American industries and occupations, including coal mines, cotton textile mills, and sweatshops in the early 1900s. Finally, the concluding section integrates these findings and attempts to apply them to child labor problems in America and the rest of the world today.

"The unprecedented economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, together with school closures and inadequate government assistance, is pushing children into exploitative and dangerous child labor. As their parents have lost jobs or income due to the pandemic and associated lockdowns, many children have entered the workforce to help their families survive. Many work long, grueling hours for little or no pay, often under hazardous conditions. Some report violence, harassment, and pay theft. [This report] is based on interviews conducted from January to March 2021 with 81 children, ages 8-17, in Ghana, Nepal, and Uganda.... The report examines the impact of the pandemic on children's rights, including their rights to education, to an adequate standard of living, and to protection from child labor, as well as government responses."--Page 4 of cover.

Child labour in fishing

How can we reduce child labor in the unfavorable circumstances of a global economic slowdown? This new flagship report, the first in a series to be published annually by the ILO's International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor, brings together research on child labor and social protection, identifying policies that are designed to achieve multiple social goals. This report includes analyses of national child labor trends based on the latest survey data, discussions of the role of poverty and economic shocks in rendering households vulnerable to child labor, and detailed consideration of income transfers, public employment programs, social insurance, and microcredit initiatives as they have been implemented around the world. The report distills a broad range of research in economic and social policy and should be of interest to those looking for ways to combat poverty in the present and reduce its burden on the next generation.

In 1790 the first water-powered mill in America was run by children, some as young as 7 years old. They were paid pennies for a work day that might last more than 10 hours. As America grew, the children's plight grew worse. Exhausted by six-day work weeks and harsh conditions, millions of young workers had no time to play or go outdoors. They had no childhood. In time children and adults fought back, and the children went on strike to protest harsh conditions. Finally, during the last years of the Great Depression, the government took action, passing the Fair Labor Act.