Presents a history of child labor around the world, describing the jobs children were and are forced to do, the ways child labor can be prevented, and the laws being created in underdeveloped countries to prevent such unfair practices.

Despite its decline throughout the advanced industrial nations, child labor remains one of the major social, political, and economic concerns of modern history, as witnessed by the many high-profile stories on child labor and sweatshops in the media today. This work considers the issue in three parts. The first section discusses child labor as a social and economic problem in America from an historical and theoretical perspective. The second part presents child labor as National Child Labor Committee investigators found it in major American industries and occupations, including coal mines, cotton textile mills, and sweatshops in the early 1900s. Finally, the concluding section integrates these findings and attempts to apply them to child labor problems in America and the rest of the world today.

Although numerous international treaties and organizations worktirelessly to improve conditions for children, there are still 320million children under the age of sixteen working around the world-- 150 million of those in the most harmful industries, such asprostitution and forced military service. This is their story, inwords and photographs. Physician and photographer David L. Parker takes us beyond theheadlines and into the textile factories, stone quarries, andgarbage dumps where children are forced -- by unscrupulous adultsor by lack of any other economic opportunity -- into the desperatecycle of child labor. His haunting and sensitive portrayal of thesechildren preserves their dignity and humanity while exposing theiroften tragic circumstances. The hazards of harsh working conditions are visitedexponentially on still-growing bodies and minds, whether they arecleaning elephant stables in India, picking cotton in Turkey, orextracting gold from Nicaraguan mines. Mercury used in miningcauses brain damage; stone dust destroys young lungs; circuscontortions cause serious muscular harm. But even beyond thedisastrous physical consequences of child labor, simply having towork means that children are deprived of the education, nurturing,and socialization that are the necessary foundations of lastinghealth, development, and progress. Dr. Parker\'s riveting portraits of children continues in thebrave documentary tradition of Lewis Hine, Milton Rogovin, andSebasti¿o Salgado, who have contributed to the legal andhumanitarian advances of previous generations. We can only hope, asHine said in the early twentieth century, that one day soonheartbreaking images like these will simply be "records of thepast." Until then, Before Their Time is an essential call toaction. 135 duotone photographs.

A documentary account of child labor in America during the early 1900s and the role Lewis Hine played in the crusade against it.

"The unprecedented economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, together with school closures and inadequate government assistance, is pushing children into exploitative and dangerous child labor. As their parents have lost jobs or income due to the pandemic and associated lockdowns, many children have entered the workforce to help their families survive. Many work long, grueling hours for little or no pay, often under hazardous conditions. Some report violence, harassment, and pay theft. [This report] is based on interviews conducted from January to March 2021 with 81 children, ages 8-17, in Ghana, Nepal, and Uganda.... The report examines the impact of the pandemic on children's rights, including their rights to education, to an adequate standard of living, and to protection from child labor, as well as government responses."--Page 4 of cover.

At the close of the 19th century, more than 2 million American children under age 16--some as young as 4 or 5--were employed on farms, in mills, canneries, factories, mines and offices, or selling newspapers and fruits and vegetables on the streets. The crusaders of the Progressive Era believed child labor was an evil that maimed the children, exploited the poor and suppressed adult wages. The child should be in school till age 16, they demanded, in order to become a good citizen. The battle for and against child labor was fought in the press as well as state and federal legislatures. Several federal efforts to ban child labor were struck down by the Supreme Court and an attempt to amend the Constitution to ban child labor failed to gain enough support. It took the Great Depression and New Deal legislation to pass the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (and receive the support of the Supreme Court). This history of American child labor details the extent to which children worked in various industries, the debate over health and social effects, and the long battle with agricultural and industrial interests to curtail the practice.

In 1790 the first water-powered mill in America was run by children, some as young as 7 years old. They were paid pennies for a work day that might last more than 10 hours. As America grew, the children's plight grew worse. Exhausted by six-day work weeks and harsh conditions, millions of young workers had no time to play or go outdoors. They had no childhood. In time children and adults fought back, and the children went on strike to protest harsh conditions. Finally, during the last years of the Great Depression, the government took action, passing the Fair Labor Act.