The Lion's Pride Volume 11 (Winter 2019) | Page 24

regulate, if not eradicate, child labor. The National Child
Labor Committee (NCLC) was founded in 1904, first to
document child labor and then to advocate national
legislation to control it. The NCLC's task was not easy,
thanks to opposition from business leaders, who used child
labor in part to keep costs down, and from the Southern
states, who viewed national legislation as an infringement of
states' rights. The first successful national child labor law, the
Keating-Owen Act, was passed in 1916, only to be struck
down by the Supreme Court in 1918. A second child labor
law, passed the following year, was struck down in 1922. A
subsequently proposed child labor amendment to the
Constitution failed to achieve ratification. Finally, in 1938,
the Fair Labor Standards Act successfully established
minimum ages and maximum hours for most forms of work,
with more lenient standards for agricultural work. Although
child labor has been largely eliminated, problems remain,
especially among migrant agricultural workers. (Breitzer,
2004)
Years later, this problem has been reduced dramatically in the United
States of America, but continues in other countries, with many children
and families facing this problem. One of these countries is Iran, where,
according to statistics, there are about 7 million child laborers. This child