This week many celebrated at the centennial anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the deadliest workplace accident in New York City’s history. The tragic fire shocked the country and become a turning moment for the American labor movement. On March 25, 1911, 146 garment workers, mostly young immigrant women, died after a fire broke out at the factory. Many of victims leaped to their deaths when they tried to escape the blazing fire only to find that the emergency exits were locked. The needless tragedy was followed by a barrage of public outrage, which then led to government action. Three years after the fire over 36 new state laws were passed on quality of workplace conditions, giving New York the most comprehensive workplace safety laws in the country and become a model for the nation.
While the results of the Triangle Factory fire led to the establishment of minimum safety standards, child labor laws, regulations and workers rights, now one hundred years later, it causes one to look at the condition of workers, as slave labor continues to plague our society, including bringing to light the labor exploitations of children across the globe. Much continues to be done to ensure that children around the world are both protected and simply allowed to be children. Despite outrage, laws, and social advancements child labor continues to plague our global society, as the face of child labor often looks sickeningly similar to the haunting images of the past. Children as young as six were widely employed and were subjected to merciless exploitation under working conditions that amounted to virtual slavery in its most oppressive forms. They were not only worked to exhaustion, they were beaten, and malnourished.
While the complete eradication of child labor has been made a priority in many countries across the globe, the goals are a long way off from being achieved, and many countries are not looking at short-term solutions and programs. It is essential that those forms of child labor, which pose the highest safety and health risks, be immediately addressed. The majority of child labors, some three-fourths, are engaged in the worst forms of child labor, including; child soldiers, sexual exploitation and hazardous work in industries such as brick manufacturing.
Thirteen-year-old Islam works in a silver cooking pot factory. He has been working at the factory for the last two years, in hazardous conditions, where it is common practice for the factory owners to take on children as unpaid apprentices, only providing them with two meals a day. -Photographer/Photojournalist: G.M.B. Akash
According to the International Labour Organization (ILO) there is an estimated 165 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 actively involved in child labor. Children are often forced to work long hours and are often forced to work in harsh and dangerous conditions. Child labor has a direct link to poverty, and provides a substantial barrier to a child’s education…thus enabling a barrier to a child’s education and increasing the literacy gap. Education is often taken for granted in developing nations, however many poor and impoverished families are forced to face the choose to send their child to school or work to help the family…it is that choice that has sent millions of children out of the classroom, often disparagingly girls, to toil in fields, factories, homes and the streets.
The use of child labor impacts children’s rights in a multitude of aspects, the most detrimental in the long term is often seen in a child’s right to education. In order to meet the UN’s Millennium Development Goals by 2015, which has set to see that all children receive and complete a full their primary education, regardless of gender. However if the goals are to be meet then we must work to see that education is free, an issue which many families still struggle to attain funds for or are forced to choose between funds for school or often food for the family. Education is a major key in the battle in finding a sustainable end to child labor and must be at the forefront of the fight, for education not only a human right for all children, but the gateway out of poverty. Education is empowerment and empowerment is the key to brake the cycle of poverty. Nonetheless some 75 million children, worldwide, do not have the privilege of basic primary education. Other issues of major priority include; gender equality in all levels of education, education and awareness about the issues and facts of child labor, and teacher shortages.
The fight against child labor is a global fight, however it is a fight that can be won through unified global action, laws and the enforcement of such laws, empowerment/education, gender equality, and consumer awareness.
