Multiple laws have been enacted that has helped lower child labor in the People's Republic of China. One of these is the People’s Republic of China Law on the Protection of Minors. This law was passed in 1991, and it was reviewed in 2006. The law stipulates a right to education for children. This applies equally to all children in the country, and states that the government, families, schools, and communities have to respect this right. This law also provides protections for minors under the age of 18 but primarily for those under the age of 16.
Many families in China highly respect education. This emphasis on education helps to keep kids in schools and out of the workforce.
Another crucial law in protecting minors is the People’s Republic of China Labor Law. This law prohibited employment of children under the age of 16.
While minors are protected by law, there are some exceptions. These exceptions state that children can work in certain fields if their education is not hindered.
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Despite efforts to limit child labor, the practice does still exist today. It exists more in the rural areas that are less regulated than in the urban areas. Unfortunately, a decent amount of the child labor being performed today is being done by trafficked children. Some of these children are forced into the sex trade while others are forced into working in factories. Many of these trafficked children have been kidnapped from the streets and are sold into child labor.
The children of migrant workers are also subject disproportionately to child labor. These migrant working parents have to leave their homes for part of the year to work in areas that have jobs. Their children are often forced to take jobs from young ages to provide for themselves. These children are also especially vulnerable to abduction.
Examples of Child Labor in China
One disturbing trend in child labor, as mentioned above, are children being forced to work in factories. A contributing factor to this is worldwide demand for cheap electronics. Companies including HTC, Samsung, and Apple have all been accused of employing child labor in China.
It is not just the electronics industry that is responsible for child labor in China. Other implicated industries include the cotton, textile, fishing, toys, hair products, and tomato products.
Combating Child Labor in China
The Chinese government has worked to end child labor in China. Laws that enforce compulsory education as well as laws that protect against child labor and work to protect children have helped lower the rate of child labor in the country. The Chinese government has signed international treaties to protect against child labor as well. Two of these treaties are the U.N.’s Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Labor Organizations Minimum Age Convention. The government has also attempted to crack down on child p*rnography and the sex trade.
While all of these laws as well as the Chinese people&rsquot;s own emphasis on the value of education have lowered child labor, 7.74% of children ages 10 to 15 years old were still working in 2010. These children often worked almost 7 hours a day, obviously impacting the time they could spend on school work and increasing their chances of not finishing their education.
Unfortunately, one of the factors working against the government is the highly competitive global market that expects cheap products. Another factor working in favor of child labor is poverty, especially in rural areas, that forces families to put their children to work. The more adults in a family, the less likely a child will be forced to work.
Some people and groups are working to limit poverty in rural areas in China. This would help the effort against child labor as families in poverty often must have their children work in order to get their needs met. Others are fighting for labor unions in the country to protect children from work and exploitation.
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Child labor in China used to be much more common than it is today. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, China enacted a one child policy whereby each family could only have one child. They did this to combat population growth. This emphasis on children brought attention to child labor, and laws were put into place by the Chinese government to combat child labor. Two of these laws were The People’s Republic of China Law on the Protection of Minors, which defines children as those under the age of 18, and the People’s Republic of China Labor Law. The Chinese government also signed international treaties against child labor. Currently, children under 16 years old in China are not legally allowed to work. Compulsory education is another factor that has led to a decrease in child labor.
Still, child labor remains a problem with approximately 7% of children ages 10-15 years old working in the country. There are multiple reasons for this including inflation and a global desire for cheap products, particularly cheap textiles and electronics. Some of these working children are kidnapped and are forced to work in factories. Others are kidnapped and forced into the sex trade. Rural children are most at risk of being sold into the sex trade. The Chinese government has put laws into place to help stop child sex trafficking, but it still remains one of the primary concerns in the country regarding child safety.
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Video Transcript
Children in China
Few nations have put as much thought into children as The People's Republic of China (PRC). Partly, this is because this nation of over 1.3 billion people is aware of the risks of overpopulation and, famously in the past, has limited the number of children each family can have. However, the one-child policy also led to an increased awareness in the government about the needs and rights of those children, and the result has been a massive and decades-long campaign against child labor.
Child labor is an unfortunate reality in many parts of the world, but China has been putting lots of effort into limiting this within a nation that still adds almost 18 million new children to the population every single year.
Child Labor Laws of China
The People's Republic of China is a major player in global affairs (biggest GDP in the world, anyone?), and as a result, has been eager to affirm international treaties on child labor set forth by the United Nations. Not only has the nation signed many international treaties guaranteeing the protection of children from hazardous labor, sex trafficking, and other dangers, but it has passed its own domestic legislation as well.
The most important law in China regarding child labor is the The PRC Law on the Protection of Minors, which was passed in 1991 and revised in 2006. This law guarantees the protection of all Chinese citizens under the age of 18. The law is strongest for children under 16 and places legal responsibilities on families, schools, and the government to protect children from various abuses, including child labor. This is doubly-enforced by the Ministry of Labor under the PRC Labor Law, which prohibits the employment of children under the age of 16.
Besides these laws, China has also passed legislation successfully enforcing a compulsory education that is seen as having dramatically reduced child labor for children under 16. The nation has laws against child trafficking as well and has been cracking down on the abduction and sale of children into labor or the sex trade.
Realities of Child Labor
With all of these laws, you may think that China has child labor under control. To a degree, you'd be right. While traditional forms of child labor are still found in many nations that developed industrial economies since the second half of the 20th century, China is an exception. Most child labor has been stamped out by the compulsory education, labor, and child protection laws. Most Chinese parents value the concept of education, so resistance to child labor laws is minimal in most parts of the nation.
There are, like everything, exceptions. China is a large country, and many rural areas are still not well connected or regulated. As a result, child trafficking, particularly the sex trade, is still a major problem in China. The government is working to crack down on child trafficking, sex work, and p*rnography, but it's an uphill battle. In fact, child abduction is a serious problem in many parts of China where traffickers will kidnap children off the streets and sell them into forced labor.
A lot of this problem is found within migrant communities. China maintains major populations of migrant laborers who leave their rural villages for part of the year to seek work in the cities. The migrant laborers may be gone for months at a time if work in rural China is particularly scarce, leaving children alone. Not only do a large number of these children take work to survive from a very young age, but they're also especially susceptible to abduction.
Many of China's child laborers are forced into the sex trade, but there has been another recent and disturbing trend as well. A large number of abducted or orphaned children are being put to work in factories, particularly those that produce high-demand electronic products. HTC, Samsung, and Apple have all been implicated in cases involving child factory labor in China. The struggling Chinese economy and the continually increasing demand for cheap electronic, textile, and other products from China have both contributed to a recent increase in child factory labor.
So, even though the Chinese government works to prevent this, we do need to be aware that China is not entirely to blame for its child labor problem. An extremely competitive global market and fierce demand for cheaper and cheaper products increase the incentive for many families to return to child labor as a positive source of income. So, if child labor is an issue we want to address as a global community, it's something we all have to work to prevent.
Lesson Summary
The People's Republic of China (PRC) is one of the most populous nations of the world, and with a very large number of children has put substantial effort into children's issues. Officially, the PRC has ratified many international child labor treaties of the United Nations and enforces its own legislation. The PRC Law on the Protection of Minors guarantees state protection of children under 18, The PRC Labor Law prohibits the employment of children under 16, and China's compulsory education law has successfully reduced child labor by a substantial margin.
However, there are still risks. Particularly in rural China, where migrant labor is widespread and many policies are harder to enforce, child labor is returning in factories that create cheap products for the global market. However, the biggest problem in China is not standard child labor, but child trafficking, particularly in the sex trade. The government is fighting to crack down on child abduction and trafficking, but it's still a struggle, one that has the potential to impact millions of children a year.
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