In this blog, I am going to talk about the conditions of forced child slave labor in China. Up until this point, I was focusing on the question on why children in China work at a young age, now I am focusing my attention on why and how children are forced to work. Prior to my research findings, I pretty much understood the conditions of forced child slavery. I thought the basic concept was children working in a dangerous and unhealthy environment. I thought children who were forced into working would work long hours and receive pay next to nothing. For the most part, I was correct. However, what I did not know was how children are forced into working. An article in the International Herald Tribute titled “Child slave labor revelations sweeping China” is an example of force labor amongst children happening in China’s society today. The article describes two stranded siblings buying a bus ticket back home from Chinese New Years from a woman, who offer the children food and shelter. The original agreement was that the two siblings would work off the debt by selling fruit; however, they were tricked into getting inside a minibus with other children that took then to a factory where they were making bricks. There was hundreds of children found working in the unstable factory, some being as young as 10 years old and deprive of a normal meal according to Simon Elegant from Time Magazine. I found this information shocking. I was stunned to believe that some children are basically fooled and are adducted like nothing happened. But after, taking into consideration of the enormous population China holds, I can start to see why this is common. After seeing some disturbing pictures of those children that the article presented, I would like to know more about the conditions and environment of children who are not forced into working because I never really heard anything about that lifestyle before.

Elegant, Simon June 2007 Slave Labor in China Sparks Outrage. Time magazine. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1635144,00.html accessed March 18, 2008

guardian angel said...: I love your article about how China is treating their own children. It is repulting to know that a strong country like China would do this. I have a blog about how China and the rest of the major countries are using this form aof slavery. I would really like your opinion about it. It is http://worldofchildslavery.blogspot.com/; April 14, 2008 at 10:16 AM