rency Hong Kong Dollar
Main exports clothing 44.5%
13p sterling
toys plastics 14.7%
Hong Kong is the 18th largest exporting nation in the world
gal minimum wage.
Overseas Investment
no
By 1975 there were 271 factories with known overseas participation employing labour force of 59 607 main sources of overseas investment are U.S., Japan, Britain.
CHILD LABOUR
1971 36 000 children aged 10-14 working legally and several thousand working illegally.
THE PROBLEM OF CHILD LABOUR IN HONG KONG
Reason why it exists
Social conditions force families to send their children out to earn money for food.
There are already laws in Hong Kong to prevent child labour but these do not prevent parents from sending their under age children to work, do not prevent employers employing them.
Children make a planned exit from factories at the times of
inspection.
Government says there will be a school place for every child in 1978 but this will not solve the problem - working children are working because they need to, so how can they pay the fees for education even if a place is offered?
Many children who have been allocated free school places have to quit school to earn money to help their families - the education offered is not free but subsidised - if parents had job security and could earn enough to support their families child labour would not exist.
Many workers do not earn enough to support their families and to send their children to school is impossible. Factory owners advertise jobs just for young workers with appropriate young workers salaries.
Men may not be able to get obs themselves so have to send children out to work instead of going to. school.
Most obs available are paid on a daily basis - lack of security, sacking at a day's notice. Most labourers earn enough to support a family of three - the average family is four/five.
Excessive overtime and child labour are necessary as long as workers are underpaid for their work. As long as there is no job security, parents will continue to send their children to work to prepare for when they are obless and homeless.
not
Poor quality of home environment - crowded hot and noisy condusive to study. Rents in new public housing estates have put them beyond the means of many families with only one breadwinner.
Unless each family has a home he can afford to pay for, sufficient to eat, clothing to wear and security in case of sickness and school places no labour laws will touch the problem of child labour as it now exists in Hong Kong.
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