Child Labor In China

A complex social and political issue that has enrooted employment history for a long period of time; child labor is evolving into a new phenomenon that is having negative impacts on children all throughout the globe. Children involved with child labor can have several different paths to their occupation which can be determined by factors such as poverty, family’s economic status, history, health, and many others. Their work can have major implications such as social disadvantages, poor health, pitiable physical development, and lack of education. Lack of wages are also implemented into the child’s work life, hardly ever approaching minimum wage. Lack of current and future support such as benefits, retirement funds, or insurance, are attached
According to several estimates by law agencies in China, the rate of children working and breaking the laws of the Employment of Children Regulations has decreased over the last fifty years. However, these numbers are highly inaccurate as there are no official and formal data. Throughout the history of China, child labor was not always viewed as a negative social construction, it was actually viewed as a positive task to benefit families with some type of economical income. This began to change during the industrialization with western machinery in the mid-nineteenth century. The history of child labor in china has been divided into four phases, “(1) before the Opium War (1840-42); (2) after the Opium war (1843-1949); (3) during the Communist central planning economy (1949-1978); and (4) in the socialist market economy after the 1978.” Although child labor throughout all four of these phases are important, only one takes place and is an issue affecting thousands
Those who spend all day working become sore in all areas of their body from their fingers to their toes, from their feet to their head. This soreness can lead to the inability to work and that can result in loss of employment, violent actions enforced, or involuntary requirement to work while in pain. Others often suffer burns from working in hot environments such as factories with lack of ventilation and air-conditioning, and some get burns from the sun while working out in fields harvesting. Polluted air can lead to lung issues, irritation to the eyes, and damage to the brain. Young women who are forced to work in brothels and sell their body can contract HIV/AIDS which can lead to major health problems such as death. Regardless of any injury received by a worker, they have no other options to take. There is zero room to get through the injury without working. Employers are not concerned regarding their employee’s health as long as there are profiting from the work being done. If they are to lose an employee they are easily replaceable as a result of the large masses of