01/25/2025
Saw a viral video of an underage Filipino girl selling food to make a living for her family. The narrator doing the voiceover who took the video then says that children should aspire to be like her instead of being on their phone.
I agree that children shouldn’t be raised on phones and should learn the concept of working hard instead of everything being handed to them. I also agree that the girl in the video is super hardworking.
But to use the word “inspiring” to describe child labor is quite disgusting. We don’t know her entire situation, we can’t solely blame the parents. The system is so broken that sometimes they do have to resort to this.
But we need to stop glorifying and normalizing children working at an early age not only in the Philippines but anywhere around the world.
Instead, we need to ask why are they working? Why is this normal? Why is the system like this? Why is no one in power putting an effort to stop this? Why aren’t they in school?
Children should be children. They shouldn’t have to learn how grow up at an age where they don’t even know the concept of being an adult. They need to learn and develop at their own pace. It shouldn’t forced onto them.
We should be looking at our government and the people in power on why this is even allowed or normalized.