Report on Committee on Children in Manufactories

The theme of this reading is cruelty. Children during this time period were treated poorly in the work environment. They were forced to work long hours in textile mills and mines, and on top of that they were exploited and treated as less-than-human, according to the text on page 436.
Social reform began during the Industrial Revolution because people saw what was happening to the children and wanted it to stop. One such man, Michael Sadler, saw it as his Christian duty to help them. He was a Tory member of the British Parliament, and he saw to it that a bill was passed that limited the number of hours a child could work per day. Even though most employers did not follow this law, it still aided in getting the ball rolling for others.
I was surprised to read, in Sir Robert Peel's statement, that the growth of the children appeared to have been stinted. I didn't actually know that was a concern, and I'm not sure how that would work. Perhaps it has something to do with getting little to no sleep because they were working so much.
This is still happening today! There are children being put to work in other countries so that we can have cheaper goods here in America. It sickens me to know every time I shop in Walmart that a child in a third-world country had to be put to work. My friend once quoted S. Ford, saying, "Every time you see the Walmart smiley bouncing around and slashing prices, somewhere there's a worker being kicked in the stomach."
I don't know what we can do about this. Walmart is such a big corporation, and it would take everyone in America to step back and stop purchasing items from them in order for Walmart to take another look at themselves. The best we can do is double check everything we buy and look at the retailers that we are purchasing from so that we know that a child or exploited worker hadn't been put to work to make what we have.