Humanities Homework Help

Post your initial response to Part 1 and reply to at least 2 posts. Then post an initial response to Part 2 and reply to at least 2 posts    

Part 1

View the power point presentation, “Child Labor” and use those pictures to help you respond to this discussion.  Read/listen to the lecture material and use that information (along with other sources you may access) to address the following questions:

Imagine you are a labor reformer in 1910 working to abolish child labor.  The mother of one of these working children confronts you and angrily demands that you leave them alone.  She explains that her husband was killed last year in an industrial accident, leaving her alone to support her three children, ages 2, 4, and 10.  Although she works two jobs, she does not make enough to pay rent and buy food without the oldest child’s income.  She insists that this child must work for the family to survive.  What do you tell her? How do you suggest that she address her problem?

Post 1:

When I look at this scenario, I think about how the employment industry should start to look like what it is today. If I were a policymaker, I would firmly address the issues of child labor and set an older age requirement for employment seeing how child labor can affect a child psychologically and cause their family trauma. Parents shouldn’t have to worry about their child’s work and instead focus on their child’s education because their success is most important for the future. The government should start addressing the issue nationally and offer financial aid to poor families and allow employers to give raises and gifts to their employees based on how well they work. It would be unfair for the best worker and the worst to get the same paycheck. Government should give aid to all families because once this starts inflation will kick and supply and demand will skyrocket. The number one thing I would focus on is a more experienced federal reserve because an inexperienced federal reserve is one of the causes of the great depression and losing a lot of money. I honestly wouldn’t know what else because to improve I don’t know how to explain it.

Post 2:

Although a minimum age to work doesn’t prevent child labor itself but setting laws in place such as laws limitting the amount of time a child can work themselves is beneficial in preventing dangerous amounts of work and help students juggle school, which should be the biggest of priorities to a child and teenager for basic understanding of human society and to support themselves. Research has found that “many studies have found that work by young children or long hours of work are harmful to both their schooling and future earning potential. For example, research across 11 countries in Latin America found that in all 11 countries, working children performed significantly lower in school than their non-working counterparts, scoring up to 17 percentage points lower on tests of language and math. Longitudinal studies in Tanzania found that work by children between 7 and 15 had a significant and negative effect on their probability of completing primary school.” This jeopardizes their skill sets for higher paying jobs that require highschool and college degrees. Therefore, as employers and family, they need to recognize the fact above that to a child, the capitalist government isn’t the biggest persuasion in their life, but their youth and personal educational path is. With that in mind, a certain limitation for work hours should be criminalized on school nights for students to make sure students have enough time for every aspect of their life. Furthermore, in order to battle deperate mployment of students due to financial struggles, governments need to recognize that their responsibilities stretch beyond just regulating or banning child labor and to foresee these issues with programs that reduce or make educaton free along with rationing systems for families stuck in poverty in order to get them back up on their feet.

As implied through the lectures, workers are the most essential aspect to the capitalistic(or any) government, simply due to the fact that they create the product and so their treatment is important. However, throughout history the higher-ups of the companies and people in management positions form hierarchical systems that implement inferior treatment of said workers, these jobs are the livelihoods of workers and they deserve the minimum basic rights of respect at the same, therefore labor unions are extremely valid and legally recognized to represent labor- rights. Our society is almost completely dependent on this capitalistic society. However, these very rights are the few things I, as a part of the government, would implement to ensure the human right of democracy, “By the people for the people ”.

Becker, J. (2020, October 28). When is it okay for children to work? Human Rights Watch. https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/04/04/when-it-okay-children-work#.

[1] (Links to an external site.) Bree Akesson et al., Open letter to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, January 27, 2016, available at: https://www.opendemocracy.net/open-letter-better-approach-to-child-work (Links to an external site.) (accessed April 1, 2016).