The Hidden Population of Child Slaves

By: Roxanne Steijn Grade 8 English ZIS J8 Summit June 2012

What is the first thing that comes into your mind when you think of children working? Homework, chores like washing the dishes, or other small jobs maybe. There are children in the world which are having even worse experiences such as working down in mine shafts and cleaning the insides of oil tankers; they are child slaves. Child slaves are children of any age which are forced to labor for many hours every day under harsh conditions whilst not being educated and having no freewill. Some governments are taking too little action against child slavery and are not trying to remove the causes of it, some of which are poverty, a lack of enforcement of laws, and the ease to overpower children. One of the biggest factors causing child slavery is poverty. This is to say, that if everyone had enough money no children would be needed to work for it. The poorer the family, district and country, the higher the amount of child slavery (Lieten, 6). Children are living under the consequences of the decisions their parents made and for some this means working to pay off the family debt (Newman, 2). Once the family is indebted and only makes enough money to pay for the basic living needs, then often the children are forced to help the parents by working. This often starts with a few hours of work a week which could be acceptable, but ends up turning into long hours every day in hazardous circumstances and the situation then turns into child slavery. This is specifically the case in poor countries where many people are in the same position and child slavery is seen as the only option to survive. Governments of poor countries should try limiting poverty because serious poverty may lead to bad conditions and be fertile grounds for child slavery. A lot of these poor countries have regimes that put a lot of effort and money into ensuring their power base, including large spending on military goods. Instead of doing this they should spend more money on limiting the poverty in families, for example by supporting children to go to a good school and become educated. Rich countries and organizations should also support the fight against poverty and programs that protect children living in slavery. Another important factor in child slavery is the legal situation of the country. All countries have laws to protect all of their citizens, including children. The lack of enforcement of these laws in countries makes it easier for child slavery to exist. A lot of countries can't enforce these laws because of the lack of budget to employ enough people to investigate and to bring the offenders to court. Often the lowly paid law enforcers can be bribed to keep silent. This way child slavery stays "A hidden crime" (Harrison, David, 199).

Unlike in the western part of the world, in poor countries people know no different than to work from very early on in life. This leads to the difficult to break belief that people are born into slavery (Seale, Shelly, 182). In general people dont like admitting that they are poor because it is often seen as a failure in life that they cannot provide for proper living conditions for their family. Such parents are of course also ashamed of their children needing to work as slaves so they don't bring it to the attention of the government and thus this group stays "A hidden population" (Manav, Tanneeru). As countries grow wealthier, law and order becomes more important and corruption reduces. This results into more attention and a reduction of child slavery. Equally important to the cause of child slavery, is the simple way a child thinks and how easy it is to overpower them. "Children live in constant fear for the loom masters", but are also very dependent on them because they have no place else to go and need the basic living needs from them (Seale, Shelly, 181). Children are not as powerful as adults and are too weak to fight against the villains who make them work very hard under bad conditions. Most child slaves see nothing else around them then hard working children in the same position as they are in and as they have not experienced anything else than this they believe that this is a normal way of living. Furthermore these children are kept very hungry so they stay awake longer and they don't become disobedient to their leaders. The leaders have far more power over the children so they can threaten them by saying they won't get food or can be tortured if they don't follow the rules. "These children behave like zombies because they can't communicate. They can only obey. We try to make these children know they are as human as anyone else." (Pierre, Tedna, 204). Almost anyone in the world knows that not enough action is taking place to assure children they can live labor-free lives. Governments should take any action possible to reduce poverty and make sure they have a good law system that can be effectively implemented and maintained. Also the governments should be more effective with making sure all children are safe, for example by reaching out to them more often. Several organizations around the world are fighting against child slavery by seeking global attention for the problem, but also by trying to stop the sales of products that are the result of child labor and slavery. As consumers we can pay attention to the products we buy so that we dont support the companies that use children to produce their products. That will force the

companies to pay attention to this problem as otherwise they will not sell their products anymore. This should lead for them to no longer use child slaves. Anti-slavery organizations deserve everyone's full support, as "The biggest shame in the world The biggest humanrights violation is child slavery, turning humans into animals" (Jacobs, Charles 182). All children should be able to live free, enjoyable lives and action needs to be taken to make this come true for every single child on this planet.

Work Cited Page: "Child Slaves." Online Image. Carpet Slaves: Child labor in Pakistan (Amanda and Kendra) . 30-05-2010. 30-05-2012 <http://theyoutubeproject.pbworks.com/w/page/22180701/Carpet%20Slaves%3A%20Child %20labor%20in%20Pakistan%20(Amanda%20and%20Kendra)>. Kazakhnomad. "What Rotary is doing about Child Slavery." Online Image. Kazakhnomads Blog: A Westerners View of Kazakhstan. 13-05-2012. 30-05-2012 <http://kazakhnomad.wordpress.com/2012/05/13/what-rotary-is-doing-about-childslavery/>. Lieten, G. Kristoffel. The Causes for Child Labour in India: the. 2007 Child Labour Net . 30-052012 <http://www.childlabour.net/documents/kristoffel%20publicaties/PovertyAnalysis.pdf>. Newman, Shirlee Petkin. Child Slavery in Modern Times. Canada: Watts Library, 2000. Online Image. Child Labor in Bangladesh. 2010. 30-05-2012 <http://pmgtg.com/stunningphotos-of-child-labor-in-bangladesh/>. Tanneeru, Manav. The challenges of counting a 'hidden population'. 09-03-2011 CNN. 3005-2012 <http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/09/slavery-numbers/>. Tenaglia-Webster, Maria, ed. Slavery Global Viewpoint . Farmington Hills: Greenhaven Press, 2009.