Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

In campaigning against the exploitation of children, I am sure that we at Collective Shout would like to think we stand upon the "Shoulders of Giants". That is, following in the footsteps of the great men and women who have gone before us in the charge to protect girls and boys from wanton exploitation and cruelty. 

One such giant was the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury (1801-1885), the great Victorian philanthropist and Christian statesman. Known simply as "Lord Shaftesbury", this doughty Victorian was most famous for his tireless campaign to humanise the drudgery of nineteenth-century factory labour through legislative reform. The welfare of children was ever close to his heart, and to this end, he worked continuously to liberate boys and girls from all degrading forms of child labour and exploitation. 

Toward the end of his life, he grew particularly distressed at how small, vulnerable children were conscripted to work in circuses and exhibitions where they were subjected to many hours of exploitation. In the preface to a book entitled, Pantomine Waifs or a Plea for our City Children (1884), Lord Shaftesbury wrote:  

“Our civilization, it seems, permits us to hand over or hire our children to a course of sin, suffering, and sorrow, and so, by the agency of these helpless creatures, thrive on the profits of their moral degredation...The working men and women, who have been justly indignant at some wrong done to others; the more easy and leisurely classes, who have almost fainted under a sensational novel, will pass the same evening to witness the torture and danger of infantine Gymnasts and Acrobats, or revel at the sight of groups of childish dancers, who, as those spectators henceforward will know (if they suspect it not already), are trained to a career of sin, misery, and ruin. To this form of slavery the English people have not, as yet, shown any general repugnance. They will probably adhere to it very tenaciously; and Miss Barlee is, perhaps, doomed to find that, in assailing the amusements of the public, she has undertaken an enterprise as hard of accomplishment as the abolition of the trade in negroes [sic], or the amendment of the factory system.”  

Now here in the twenty-first century, sadly, there are still forms of child exploitation, and indeed slavery, in our midst. On a number of continents, children still toil under appalling conditions in factories and plantations. Even on our own shores, girls are cruelly conscripted into sex-trafficking and small children are in danger of becoming fair game for so-called "beauty pageants". Like Lord Shaftesbury, we need to be filled with the same indignation, resolve and compassion to protect our children from been sucked into a merciless vortex of misery and ruin - often in the name of unscrupulous commercial gain or "entertainment". Just like those who have gone before us, we at Collective Shout can make a palpable difference to the lives of our girls and boys if we act now!