Niños y niñas (Children)

Children worked in the metallurgical industry, in the weapons factories in Eibar and Placencia de las Armas, and in tool and machine-tool workshop, and in the food industry and canning factories, especially in coastal areas. There are paper factories in Tolosa and other towns in the Oria valley, which employed children, too. Children performed a variety of tasks, generally those requiring less physical strength but greater agility, such as cleaning and maintaining machinery, collecting and winding threads, simple sewing tasks, assembly tasks, polishing small parts, transporting light materials, sorting and selecting raw materials, cleaning and preparing food, and labeling and packaging products.

Children endured long workdays, often 10 to 12 hours a day, and received exceptionally low wages, usually a fraction of what an adult earned. They also worked in dangerous and unhealthy conditions and had no access to education or leisure time due to the long working hours. It is important to note that child labor was a widespread practice during industrialization, not only in Gipuzkoa but throughout Europe.

However, as the 20th century progressed, laws were introduced to protect children and regulate their work, although the effective implementation of these laws was gradual.