Children's Rights
| Author | Jeffrey Wilson |
| Pages | 209-212 |
Page 209
When people in the United States think of children's rights they usually think of children in third world countries who are victims of abusive child labor practices or insurmountable poverty. They may not realize that the rights of children are violated in the United States as well. Even though child labor laws were passed decades ago prohibiting employment of underage youngsters, pockets of oppressive child labor exist, literally, on American soil; child farm laborers work long hours in squalid conditions and often receive half the standard minimum wage. And although numerous studies show that children do better when two parents are involved their upbringing, many custody laws make it extremely difficult for non-custodial parents to spend quality time with their children.
To be sure, the United States is still better than most countries when it comes to how children are treated. Yet children's rights is a topic that few people know much about. In fact, although many people know that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child was formulated in 1989, they are probably unaware that the United States is one of two countries (the other is Somalia) that have not ratified the Convention. The U.S. government has given what it believes are sound reasons for not having ratified the Convention and repeatedly has affirmed its commitment to children's rights in the United States and abroad. Yet there is no question that some children do fall into the cracks, and others' problems are unwisely minimized.
It was not uncommon for children to be exploited before the 1930s. Children routinely worked in hazardous conditions in mills, factories, and sweatshops, and on farms. They might begin working before they had reached their tenth birthday, and they received little in the way of wages. Labor laws did not exist to protect children or adults, but children were often subject to more exploitative conditions because they were easier to manipulate.
The plight of small children did lead to the enactment of some laws, and the federal government tried in 1918 and agin in 1922, to enact national child labor laws. Both times, the effort was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that it was up to the individual states to enact child labor legislation.
In 1938, partly in response to the Great Depression, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). This law protected workers from long
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hours and unfair pay by establishing a 40-hour work week and a minimum wage. It also protected children from exploitation by establishing that they would have to be at least 16 to work in most nonagricultural industries. Younger children could still work certain jobs provided the hours and wages were fair. (It was still possible, in other words, for children to get a newspaper route.) FLSA was challenged in the courts soon after its passage but its constitutionality was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1941.
Although the United States does not have the gruesome record of children's rights violations that other countries have, it is not free of violations. Some are more subtle...
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