Child Labor
Child labor tends to be thought of as a 19th century evil that has now been eradicated. The reality is that, throughout the world, the labor of millions of children still occurs, often in conditions as horrific as the factories of 150 years ago. These children are forced to engage in back-breaking labor in stone quarries, brick kilns, construction sites, and other hazardous occupations.
There are now estimated to be 200 million child laborers in the world. This is today’s world of nine year old coal miners and eight year old prostitutes, and of little girls who work 12 hour shifts in sweatshops.
In most of these sweatshops, they are forced to eat, sleep and work in the same stuffy, overcrowded room. Girls rescued recently from one Bangkok sweatshop were forced to work in strict silence from 6 am to midnight. They were mercilessly flogged for breaking the rules.
These children are robbed of their childhood, they have to toil up to 18 hours a day, seven days a week.
The material in this report is based on Missions to West Africa, southern and eastern Africa, South Asia and South-East Asia by the Society’s Secretary-General, by members of the Society’s Board of Governors and by the Society's Program Directors for South Asia and South-East Asia.
(http://www.anti-slaverysociety.addr.com/clab.htm. Acesso em 21/11/2007)
O enunciado "These children are robbed of their childhood (...)", no 40. parágrafo, expõe a ideia de que