Child Labor - A Call to End Tyranny

Good morning Ms. Gardner and fellow students. This is a day we all come together to
listen to the tyranny of the world be put into the spotlight in the attempt to either get a good
grade, or truly try and change the world. Looking back in time, all have seen the patterns of
history: from genocide to peace, from racism to equality, from death to life. Yet who truly knows
the power of what can be accomplished when every nation, every people, every heart unites to
end one form of tyranny?
It has never been done; but let that not stop us. For we cannot believe that child labor is
unreachable, for it will someday reach up out of the depths and pull the world into it, cloaking all
nations. The world is not as it once was. Today many children work, not to pay the bills, but to
earn spending money. This is not child labor. Child labor is when children must work to keep
themselves and their families alive.
While in the past, let us dive into the history of this form of tyranny. Child labor has been
a part of many countries economies for centuries. But it becomes ever more salient as supply
and demand call for industrialization. Throughout history, children have been servants,
apprentices, and farmers, but beginning in the 19th century, they were called on to work in
dangerous factory conditions with meager pay. The reasoning behind this, as Walter Trattner says
in his article Crusade for the Children: A History of the National Child Labor Committee and
Child Labor Reform in America, children were easier to handle, whether it was with a beating or
the inability to form a union. Child labor committees formed, and eventually it was greatly
reduced in the United States; however, the entire world did not follow.
Bolivia is one of these countries. Jane Furigay reports that the legislature is debating a
new children's rights bill, which affirms the current minimum age of 14. In her article Bolivia:

Dont Lower Age for Child Labor, she shows how desperate countries are because they are
willing to give up anything in an attempt to eliminate poverty. While not embraced around the
globe, this is a common step taken by countries burdened with a large population of poor people.
Furigay continues to say that child labor perpetuates the cycle of poverty by not allowing
children to go to school and obtain better jobs and hopes for the future. For if poverty continues
to inflict child labor, child labor will continue to inflict poverty.
Fellow students, do not believe that this does not affect you. For if you cut off one head
of child labor, two more will emerge in its place unless its center is destroyed. That center is lack
of education. We are the future generation. Let us join together with the future generations all
around the world to reach out to the farthest places, seek out those who need our help, and draw
near to those who cry out for the freedom of literacy. Let us peacefully end wars, triumphantly
end child labor, and respectfully begin educations for every child of every nation.
It is easy to say that it would be too hard and that it is not worth the effort. But when you
see a young girl trudge off to work for twelve hours a day, seven days a week; when you watch a
young boy follow his fellow workers into a dank mine shaft, unsure of whether he will see the
light of day again; when you watch children harvest cocoa pods, knowing they will never taste
chocolate; when you see children lying along the streets like dying flowers, abandoned; when
you watch children leave their injured mothers or fathers to go to a job that barely provides
enough to live on; when you watch children serve adults as they are beaten repeatedly; when you
see a twisted child lying on a crude bed, knowing they will never again be able to walk, jog, talk,
see, hear, draw, collect; when you see children cower as another whip cracks behind them,
fearing that the next will forever crown their features with cruel clashes of skin; when you watch
children cry out in pain as a sharp knife cuts into their fragile skin; when you hear children deep

in mine shafts calling out for a savior as they are encircled by torrents of dust and rock; then you
will know that this cry for help cannot be ignored.
This cry for help is a time-bomb: it will someday engulf the world in darkness. Do not
allow this explosion to occur. Save these people, for it is not through one that the world will be
saved, not through two, but through every nation, every man, woman, and child, every heart and
soul. Already there are many who are fighting for the equality of all children, but let us join and
change the world. For today is not the beginning. Today is not the start of a fight. Today is the
day we join a battle that will bring freedom to all.

Works Cited:
Furigay, Jane. "Bolivia: Don't Lower Age for Child Labor." Targeted News Service. 24 Jan. 2014:
n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 29 Oct. 2014.

Trattner, Walter. Crusade for the Children: A History of the National Child Labor Committee and
Child Labor Reform in America. The Readers Companion to American History. 1991.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Web. 29 Oct. 2014.