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The vast majority of the world's good quality leather footballs were and still are sewn by youngsters in Pakistan. Childrens charities got involved in trying to stop child labour in such factories.
In some cases these teenage boys were the main breadwinner ..mum's a widow etc...and said excuse me...now we starve. So it was back to work, boys BUT hopefully with better conditions and some free education.Just as in the Britain of the 18th and early 19th century, there was a demand for the cheap, nimble fingered child in the cotton mill, there is a still a demand for cheap unskilled labour elsewhere . WE got reform not just because of the philanthropists, social reformers and early power of the TUs of the time but because the demand was growing for literate and numerate workers.
No one wants to see children working their fingers to the bone and having no time for play and education BUT you cannot pull the rug of work and bread straight from under the feet of a society without putting into place the reforms of education and support for a family in need of food and a roof over its' head. Yes these children are exploited by both their families (of necessity) and by employers but they themselves will expect and feel proud to contribute.Immediate financial need is what drives families to put their children to work. There is NO state support to feed them as in the West and sometimes however dreadful it seems to us, needs must. There is always, it seems another country were they will do things cheaper when others demand more to pay adult wages. It's a sorry world and you cannot change it over night.
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Lizajuk-Kadife
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