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As
countries industrialize, rural poverty causes a growing migration
to the cities in the hope of work and a better future.
Businesses
seek to employ labor from among the rural poor, and children are
cheap.
They
work in stone-breaking quarries, on construction sites, in
brickworks and chemical factories, in chalk and glassworks, on
carpet looms, in workshops making brassware, fireworks, locks,
shoes and textiles, in transport, mining, ceramics — and in many
other sectors.
Ill-treatment
and disease often mark them for life. Lungs are damaged by dust
and fumes, backs are malformed through crouching or carrying heavy
loads, eyesight ruined by working in poor light.
In
some cases, organized gangs or recruiting 'agents' use economic
pressure, trickery and advances on wages to persuade often
desperate parents to hand over their children.
The
children are taken, sometimes as bonded labor, to distant towns,
and are made to work long hours for little or no pay.
Their
lives are not their own.
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