Why doesn’t the government enforce child labor laws upon their citizens?

In my previous blog towards the end, I talked about how I wanted to learn more about China’s government policy about child labor. In this blog, I am going to discuss what I learnt about China’s government policy on child labor and how it is still affecting children, but first I want restate my thoughts and beliefs on what I learned to accept from other people and from the media. As I described in my first entry, I thought the Chinese government was at fault for the uncontrollable number of underage workers because the government was not attentive to protect children from working at a young age because of the demand in supplies they wanted to fulfill. Another reason why I thought the Chinese government did not prohibit children from working was because they would have a lot of problems enforcing the laws due to their population. Now acquiring new information, I now know that is not necessarily the case. What I failed to understand when I was younger that on January 1^st, 1995 there was a new child labor law put in effect that did not allow children under 16 years old to be employed, according to the Bureau of International Labor Affairs. I was surprised when I discovered this information. My earlier belief on how the government was not attentive to protect children was dismissed. But if all this time the government had laws to protect children then, why is there still an increasing amount of underage workers? I would later find out through the Bureau of International Labor Affairs that there is a great amount of difficulty enforcing the child labor laws because most children use counterfeit identification cards to get employed. There have been several reports of counterfeit ID used frequently in China. According to Bureau of International Labor Affairs, some employees confessed that they lied on their ID cards claiming to be 16, but was actually three or four years younger. Now I feel as though I have a brighter picture on the question on why children work at an early age. I am now convinced that it is not the government fault a hundred percent because they have been trying to put an end to the child labor in the past, but just are having difficulty enforcing the law because of the over-whelming numbers of false identification. This makes sense because China contributes greatly to the world’s population. However, I think the government should be more conscious of this issue and make it require that teenagers show another form of identification or pass a new law protecting workers. I feel as though I am learning a lot about China and starting to figure out things for myself as oppose of listening to other people.

Bureau of International Labor Affairs March 2008 National Child Labor Laws. Electronic document, http://www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/sweat/china.htm accessed March 16, 2008

China Labour Bulletin association. November 2003 Child Labour in China: Causes and solutions. Electronic document, http://www.china-labour.org.hk/en/node/3304 accessed March 16, 2008