Child Labor In Ender's Game

Did you know that in the world’s poorest countries, around 1 in 4 children are engaged in child labour? (UNICEF Data) Something we thought had disappeared still exists today even in the United States! The surreal account in Orson Scott Card’s novel, Ender’s Game, correlates with real life. In our world the government has turned a blind eye to child labor, their mental health, and safety regulations, just like in Card’s novel. In Card’s world we get an inside look into the government’s program for child soldiers. The main human rights issue in his novel is child labor. To prove this we will look into some of the indicators of child labor. According to the National Academies Press “Convention 182 (C. 182) prohibits the following: All forms

Although child labor laws were put in place in the U.S. many years ago we can still find it in the seams of our country. According to Semuels, The Occupational Health and Safety Administration received 19 child-labor complaints and found 467 child-labor violations in 2010. (par. 18) In addition, these children work in construction sites, farms, or other places that require hard physical labor. Also, we know the government has issued laws that make certain farm work illegal for minors. The Fair Labor Standards Act establishes a 16-year minimum age for those occupations in agriculture that the Secretary of Labor finds and declares to be particularly hazardous.( Kerschner, pg. 8) Certainly, there are many situations that the Secretary of Labor declares hazardous, some that we deem normal for children to work on such as tractor or a cotton picker. Likewise, in Ender’s Game we see the children under hard physical labor. “…he noticed how very tired Bean looked, his whole body bent with weariness, his eyes dark from lack of sleep; and yet his skin was still soft and translucent, the skin of a child, the soft curved cheek, the slender limbs of a boy. He wasn’t eight years old yet.” (Card, pg. 220) As a result, the children in the novel are exhausted and tired of the government controlling their life and unfair outcomes. These minors train an exuberant amount of time

In Ender’s Game and in real life China child labor is a major problem. For example, children in China were often tricked or kidnapped by employment agencies and then sent to factory towns where they were sometimes forced to work 300 hours a month. (Barboza, par 3) As a result, these children were obligated to join the workforce at a young age in abominable conditions and missing out on proper education. The aforementioned children lose their deserved childhood to further the agenda of someone who doesn’t care for them. “One 15-year-old worker from Wenshan, Yunnan, was quoted as saying he works at least 28 days a month, starting work each day at 7.30am and never finishing before 10pm. The boss beats him if he “misbehaves”, he said, adding that he and his co-workers don’t get paid until the end of the year, and will not be paid at all if they leave before then.” (Zuo, pars 7-8) As can be seen, the minors work grueling hours and go through rigorous physical exertion. Likewise, in Ender’s Game the government only looks out for the children to ensure they do their job. In Ender’s Game the children are worked strenuously as we see in the following quote, “…Bean has been through a battle with a whole army depending on him and on the soldiers that he led, and preformed splendidly, and they won. There’s no youth in that. No childhood.” (Card, pg. 220) Furthermore, the