Not too long ago we had here the same situation. It was quite a struggle to pass a law prohibiting child labor, but in practice it wasn’t even upheld.
In the nineteen hundreds after four years, many committees, inquiries, demonstrations and strikes were bearing fruit with the Child Labor Act (1889). This stipulates that children under 12 are not allowed to work in the industry, while night work is also prohibited for girls between 12 and 21 years of age.
At the initiative of the liberal politician Samuel van Houten, the first law in the Netherlands to end child labor is passed. The act is called the Act containing measures to combat excessive labor and neglect of children, but it is better known as Van Houten’s Children’s Act. This law states that children under the age of twelve are not allowed to work in factories. However, the implementation of the law is hardly monitored, so that the use of young children in the factories continues as usual.
It ended when it showed that most boys when drafted into the army were in such a deplorable physical condition, already worn out at that age, that they were rejected. The need for healthy soldiers in fact ended this gruesome situation.