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Have you ever seen children as young as 3, 4 or 5 years old walking barefoot on roads, knocking on car windows, begging for alms? Or perhaps young school age children waiting for patrons on a parking lot, offering the drivers and car owners to clean or look after their car for a small change? How about teenage boys and girls working in a factory as hired hands? Or worse, young boys and girls being peddled for prostitution.

These are just some of the extreme cases of child labor that I have grown to see living in a third world country. There may be other forms of child labor like young kids skipping school to work as actors and actresses in movies and on TV. Their work environment may not be as bad as those begging for alms or working in factories, and because they have a "permit" to work they are not considered half as bad as those low-paying jobs. Nevertheless, it is still child labor.

Child labor is brought about by several factors. It is like a disease whose cure would depend on how effectively the causes would be pin-pointed and treated. This issue is a worldwide concern. Even progressive countries suffer from this society plague.

To eliminate child labor, the reasons why child labor is ignited should be the first one to focus on.

CURE POVERTY

This is one of the most worn-out excuse to child labor. Sad to say, but this excuse is certainly one of the main reason why children work. Poor families whose parents are working on low-paying and sometimes irregular jobs have a tendency to allow their children to work instead of (or sometimes in addition to) attending school. There are times that the children themselves would have the initiative to either work instead of going to school or work after school hours for a simple reason that they want to help their parents earn money. A very good deed, don't you think? However, is it reasonable?

If the government would provide enough descent and regular job for parents to give them the capacity to earn reasonable amount of money to provide for their families, perhaps that would be a big step to putting a stop to children who are working instead of going to school and enjoying their childhood.

STOP ILLITERACY

For poor families, even sending their children to school is burden enough because they couldn't afford it. In turn, illiterate parents are most likely to have illiterate children and the cycle wouldn't stop unless there is one person to stand among the rest and strive to make life better than it was before.

More often than

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