Matthew Rosenthal HW # 15 Child Labor 1) What is child labor? Child labor is when children do manual labor.

This type of labor should usually only be done by adults because it is dangerous for younger people to do it. There are (now) many laws that prevent child labor from occurring. 2) For Indias Children, Philanthropy Isnt Enough by Sonia Faleiro (9/15/12 --NY Times) This article is about the current condition of children in India. The article starts off with an anecdote about a girl named Meena Devi, who is only ten years old and already the head of her household. She and her two brothers are orphans; their mother died 3 years ago and left them with nothing except an aunt who does little to help. There are millions of children like Meena in India, children who have to live in mud huts and who have to struggle to survive. The government has certain programs for school to help students get meals, but the programs are too corruptteachers dont show and so the kids dont get their free meals. Before August of this year, children in India who were under 14 were still allowed too work, even if hazardous environments. But these laws arent rigid enough. Some kids under 14 are still being worked to their breaking points in dangerous environments, for meager pay. Meenas brother only makes $1 a day working at a brick kiln. Her other brother will soon work there just to help

provide for the three of them. The worse part of this is that many of these innocent kids are getting trafficked, or traded by dangerous gangs and higher class citizens of India.

(My opinion) The situation in India is really terrible. Children should not have to do back-breaking work to barely make ends meet. Child labor laws are put into place in order to protect children. Children are not physically or mentally capable of doing the manual labor that is required of them. Back when child labor was allowed in America, many children would get sick or even die due to the horrid conditions they had to work under. Child labor is another way of bringing in income and raising money. Obviously the more people in the work force, the better off the economy will be (that is, if the work force and government arent too corrupt). So having child labor in India might be important for some families, especially extremely low class families, because it enables them to pay their bills, so to speak. But it is not acceptable to risk a childs life just to put money on the table. (For some though, there is not other option).