Enders Game Analysis

It is startling to find that in the United States and around the world, children are still being abused and miss used for the monetary benefit of individual’s, to improve business profits or as a means to an end for impoverished families.

In Enders Game children were being used to fight alien invaders that adults fear will come back someday, the character Colonel Graff summed it up when he stated “Human beings are free except when humanity needs them.” (Card 35) It is not only the character Colonel Graff that seems to believe this but in the real world as well. According to the International Labor Organization they found that one-quarter of all children ages 5-14 are working, with many of them doing hazardous jobs. (Moulson, 1998)

The article goes on and quotes Elena G saying “With the money that I earn, I help my mom. I give her gas money. I buy food from the tobacco [work] for us to eat…. Then I try to save up the money so I can have my school supplies and school stuff like clothes and shoes.”

Elena G works to help her mother and her mother allows her to do this work despite the fact that Elena becomes ill from the pesticides and exposure to nicotine. Even the U.S. government has acknowledged that working in the tobacco fields is unhealthy for children under 18. In fact according to Evans “The US government has acknowledged the risks to children that work in tobacco farming, but has failed to change the US regulatory framework to end hazardous child labor in the crop.” In the end, despite the known risks mother and child continue to work in the tobacco fields because the economic need outweighs the

The United States is not the only country dealing with human right issues. Currently around the world countries are dealing with slavery-like practices, forced labor and debt bondage and in some cases prostitution and pornography. In an effort to bring attention to current world affairs a group of children rescued from mines, sweatshops and servitude met in Geneva recently calling for the International Labor Organization to restrict child labor practices around the world.

In the article for the Associated Press Geir Moulson, tells us that "Children are employed simply because they are cheaper and more compliant than adults," said Neal Kearney, general-secretary of the Brussels-based International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers Federation.

Moulson, states that surveys by the International Labor origination found that one-quarter of all children ages 5 – 14 still work at hazardous jobs. He goes on to tell us that the labor organization is calling for new legal standards that would bring criminal penalties, identify preventative measures and support for child victims of prostitution and