A report released Wednesday by Human Rights Watch details the health and safety risks confronting children engaged in agricultural labor in the U.S. Kids as young as 12 make less than minimum wage on farms, and 16- and 17-year-olds are allowed to perform hazardous jobs, the report found. Between 2005 and 2008, 43 child farmworkers died on the job.
Human Rights Watch interviewed 59 child farmworkers who had worked in a total of 14 states. The report follows up on a 2000 study of the same topic and found that little had changed for an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 kids who work on farms.
Child labor laws are different on farms than in any other industry, and the rules have not changed since 1938, when there were still many family farms. Children are allowed to start working at a younger age and for longer hours. A bill that would close labor loopholes and increase penalties for violations is pending in Congress, the Associated Press reports.
The Department of Labor, Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency have all agreed that tighter restrictions on child labor and safety hazards are needed. The American Farm Bureau, which represents farmers and ranchers in Washington, said the problem is isolated and the solution is not to keep kids from earning a paycheck.
[...] Report Finds Child Farmworkers at Risk, Calls for Labor Reform [...]
[...] does, but the new study from Human Rights Watch finds that between 300,000 and 400,000 kids work on farms in the United States, under labor laws that haven’t changed since the 1930s. Most gross but [...]