Supporting Education - A continuous cycle exists in
places where child labour and sweatshops are. The cycle starts with poverty and families
sending their children to work in order to get money, so the rest of the family can live. When
those children grow up and have kids, their children will be sent to sweatshops to work. If
these kids are sent off to work each day, it means that they simply have no time to get an
education, and since they can't get an education the cycle continues. The only way to break
this abysmal pattern is to provide these children with an education so they can get a job and
provide for their future families and so that their children don't have to work in these horrid conditions.
Consumer Pressure - Child labour exists for two main
reasons; because businesses want to save money and get labour for minimal cost, and because
there are many children that are susceptible, and are forced into this work. A way to help end
child labour is to place pressure on companies that employ children. Although boycotting could
put an end to child labour factories, it could also worsen a child’s situation by forcing him/her into
the streets or getting a more dangerous job. Boycotting should only be used to create awareness
for the problem since it will not end child labour.
Create more labour laws - Legislation should be created that
will not allow for children to be exploited by being forced to work long hours for very little pay. Businesses
and companies should have a minimum age requirement, and those who work should be able to make a
reasonable minimum wage, and have a maximum work week to make sure that no one is working under
extremely dangerous conditions. Although legislation can be created, they are extremely hard to enforce
in other countries due to poor paper work. Many children do not have birth records so they can easily
lie about their ages. Some countries are taking steps to eliminate child labour however, some child
labour places such as carpet making factories hire less than 10 people and even if those 10 are
children, the labour laws do not apply to them because of the amount of employees. A special task
force from the UN could possibly be created to enforce these laws, to make sure that there aren’t
any employers not following these guidelines.
Rehabilitate the Children - Although child labour is
generally bad, children usually believe that they need to work in order to survive. Sometimes when
children leave the work world, their families can plummet even further into poverty and that is something
that CATFO does not want. Smooth transitions should be made and flexibility should be used in order
to provide the best for the child. Some changes could mean better working environments and an
education brought to the work so that the children can still continue work and learn at the same time.
This does not mean that child labour is okay, it just focuses more on the mental and emotional well being of a child.
The second way is to put pressure on the government so that they will place stricter guidelines
on products entering the country. For example, no product made by children, in what would be considered
unacceptable work conditions should be sold.