Child Labor in the Industrial Revolution

While reading about child labor in the Industrial Revolution, I felt horrible about the poor working conditions children as young as 8 or 9 had to face on a daily basis. In 1750, about 14% of the working force was made up of children. On average children worked from 12 to 14 hour days, with an hour break for lunch. In addition, these children were given minimal food and water, in order to maximize the factory's revenue. What astounds me even more, which i found out while researching this topic, is that that child labor is still largely enforced in countries throughout the world. Unicef estimates that 218 million children around the world are in the work force, and that about 2.5 million of these children live in industrialized nations, not just in rural parts of Africa and Asia!
The next question that came to mind was why the British successfully battled against child labor during and after the Industrial Revolution, while other modern countries still have not done anything about it. This effort to battle child labor in Britain included the passing of the Factory Act of 1833, which placed restrictions on the amount of work hours children of different ages were allowed to work. In addition, more progress was made in this effort early in the 20th century as well, by activists such as Jane Addams.
In my opinion, what sets Britain apart in the area of progress is that they were already involved in reform. As opposed to other countries that employ children, Britain was in the midst of extreme change, involving a new age of invention. This age of inventive change encouraged people to strive to change other things other than machinery as well, such as child labor laws. In other countries however, there is no modern "industrial revolution" taking place, and thus no encouragement for change.

^Soot covered faces of children working in a factory in the Industrial Revolution