Working at Ten Years Old: Child Labor in South America

Earlier this year the Bolivian government announced, much to the world’s dismay, that children as young as 10 years old would be allowed to begin working legally. However, this new law comes with ‘so long as their work doesn’t interfere with their education.

’ Many would be wondering at how a ten year olds work could not interfere with their education - even as a 21 year old I sometimes struggle to balance work and education and my brain is fully developed.

So why was this law introduced? Because thousands of Bolivian children are illegally crossing into the United States to find work and the Bolivian government has basically said ‘you can work here legally instead’. But unlike me, these children are not doing labor that requires standing in a retail store smiling at customers and snacking behind the counter when it’s quiet.

The labor these children are doing because Bolivia, and many other countries in South America, has a lower-income society is often dangerous, strenuous, and allows for them to be easily exploited. Many children here in Australia start work around 13 or 14 years old, but as a majority the work is regulated around our education and safe. Exploitation is rare (except for a certain Australian bakery franchise) and is not nearly as severe as the exploitation being experienced by children in lower-income countries like Bolivia.

This year’s FIFA World Cup in Brazil showed the world that child sex labor is more prominent than many people originally thought and a sickening amount of members of the FIFA audience participated. The horrible reality about the child sex labor controversy surrounding the FIFA World Cup is that it was simply a supply for demand. Tourists came to Brazil expecting many forms of cheap labor because of Brazil’s reputation as a low-income country.

 Taylor-Jayne Wilkshire

Source: http://www.ilo.org/ipec/Regionsandcountries/latin-america-and-caribbean/lang--en/index.htm

Image: foter.com