Child Labor in Coal Mining
Must Be Stopped!
Coal mining is dangerous!
Dangers in coal mining include poisonous gases, explosive gases, flooding in tunnels, collapsing tunnels, toxic coal dust, falling down mines shafts, or being crushed by equipment. Children worked in mines and faced these dangers. In one mine, 58 of the 349 mining deaths that year were children under the age of 13!
Children are paid much less than adults!
In 1842 a government report in Britain about coal mines said that children as young as 5 years old were working 12 hours a day for 2pennies a day!
Child moving coal cart
Tunnels were small
Both girls and boys worked
What can be done to stop this?!
Laws can be passed to restrict and outlaw child labor!
A series of laws called the Factory Acts were passed starting in the early 1800s. At first, they only limited children under the age of 8 or 9 from working and not more than 12 hours per day. Later they included older ages and shorter work days, as well as having government inspectors make sure that businesses were compiling with these laws. Later, all children were required to be educated.