Child Garbage Scavengers in the Third World

Many of us cannot even begin to imagine the life that a child garbage scavenger is forced to lead on a daily basis in order to survive. In numerous countries across the globe children are being deprived of proper schooling, health, rights and basic human dignity in order to keep themselves and their families alive. As early as age 10, some children work 5-8 hours per day picking through garbage on a dump site, and many teens then begin working at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning and do not stop until far into the night. Children are faced with countless health hazards and forced to ignore horrific conditions to simply bring home less than 1 U.S. dollar a day. It becomes nearly impossible to balance such a demanding work schedule with a healthy education, and most children choose to drop of school before or around age 12 to work full time.

Scavenging thus not only becomes an occupation to the workers at dump sites, but rather transforms into an entire culture and way of life. Child garbage scavengers are one of the most intolerable forms of child labor and direct violation of children's rights. I chose to research this topic to inform people on the gross injustices being perpetuated within cultures not too far from our home. We all need to open our eyes and see that a very real connection exists between our lives and the gruesome occupation these children call reality. I think it is important that people are informed that such realities exist so that we can all begin taking the necessary steps towards enacting a real change to help solve this problem. It is only then that the world can be given some sense of hope for the future that eradicating child labor is not an insurmountable issue.

http://itrs.scu.edu/faculty/Bousquet/winter07/ENGL2_Th/nmorano_winter07/dumpchildren.html