Cotton Industry For Children! By Zoha

Contents Facts about children in cotton industry Thanks for watching! Children at work today Manufacturing! Working hours and wages What do children do today

Facts about children in cotton industry!!! A third of all cotton mill workers were children because their labour was so cheap. In the days when the textile industry was cottage based, women did the spinning, children carded and wound the yarn while the man of the house did the weaving. In Victorian times, children were expected to work for a living, with most children starting their first full time job at around the age of seven.

Children at work today Children can still be found working in many dangerous places like factories, mines, quarries, on the land and other worse industries. Other children are forced to do many unskilled, repetitive jobs such as making boxes, polishing shoes, cleaning or helping in a family business to earn their keep or help to feed their family. Many can be found selling many things on the streets or hidden away in houses as servants. Almost 70% of all child workers work on the land, fishing or farming, some of them in terrible conditions. This includes cotton fields. There are around 132 million children under 15 years of age working the land around the world! Most child workers can be found in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America. But child labour today is not restricted to developing countries. There are working children found in developed industrialised countries like Turkey

Manufacturing! Children can still be found working looms and sewing machines to produce fabric, carpets and clothing in many developing countries like India. Many work in terrible places which are cramped, dirty and badly lit. These places have been called sweatshops.

Working hours and Wages! Child cotton workers work long hours for very little money, whether in the field or a workshop. Their families rely on them and they can contribute up to a quarter of their family's income! Wages are paid in the field based on the amount of cotton that a person harvests and its usually 10% of the value of the cotton. It has been reported that young people work 10-12 hours shifts in 40 degree heat for less than £1 per day. This means that these children work over 70 hours a week!

What do children do today Children are still involved in every part of the cotton journey in different parts of the world, as they were 200 years ago. The two main areas that children can still be found working are in cotton growing or picking and in manufacturing (making items from cotton).

Thanks For Watching!!!!