Child labour occurs when children get paid to do work. Although they have always had to work in some way, child labour started to become a major problem when children started to work in factories and mines in England during the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century . Many of them were very young. Factory owners forced them to work long hours and they got very little money for their work. Working conditions were very unhealthy. Factories were dirty and the air was bad. In mines children had to crawl through tunnels that were not wide enough for adults . Most children worked to help their families survive .

During the 19th century the situation of children started to improve . Most of them were able to go to school and lead a better life. In his novel “Oliver Twist” the famous English novelist, Charles Dickens, showed how factory work was ruining the lives of children in England.

 

Child labour today
Although many countries have laws that forbid child labour under a certain age, there are millions of children all over the world who are forced to work, especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Common for children is factory work, working on farms or even prostitution . Some work as tourists guides ; others sell things on the streets or are beggars . According to the United Nations there are about 200 million child workers all over the world. Among them are about a hundred million who work in dangerous jobs. Over 22,000 children die in accidents at work every year.

Most children in the Third World work in agriculture . In Brazil, for example, children work on sugar plantations , sometimes as young as four. Others work on the streets. They polish shoes, wash cars, carry luggage or do any chore that is thinkable. The majority live in slums on the edge of big cities.

Sometimes children are forced to be prostitutes or have to serve rebel or army groups in civil wars . In Iran, thousands of children served as soldiers in the war against Iraq during the 1980s.