Xinhua News Agency, Washington, June 13 (Reporter Sun Ding) Last year, the United Farm Workers Union of the United States posted a photo on social media-a 7-year-old boy in Indiana, United States, under the scorching sun. Hard work in the fields, picking strawberries In the American fields, some teenagers and even children are doing the work that adult farm workers do.
According to estimates by the non-profit American Farm Worker Employment Training Program, there are still about 500,000 child laborers in the country who work in agriculture, and child labour deaths are frequent. Throughout U.S. history, child labour has emerged in a variety of forms, including child slavery and indentured labour. In 1938, the United States promulgated the “Fair Labour Standards Act”, which stipulated and restricted the use of juveniles and children by employers to participate in labour, but “opened the net” to farmers, and even allowed them to hire children to harvest crops under certain conditions.
To this day, some children in the United States start working from the age of 8, working up to 72 hours a week. In October last year, due to the “labour shortage”, some parts of the United States took up the idea of minors again and passed legislation to extend the hours that teenagers can work. On October 20, 2021, the Wisconsin State Assembly Senate passed Bill 332 to amend the working hours regulations for minors aged 14-16. Pictured is a screenshot of the bill’s webpage. U.S. farms are labour-intensive and harsh, and child labour is often at risk from weather, pesticides, and the use of farm implements and machinery.
A report released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office in 2018 revealed that from 2003 to 2016, 452 children died in the United States due to work-related injuries, of which more than 230 died from agricultural-related activities. While working, children can experience health problems from exposure to the sun, including heat stroke, dehydration, and even death. In addition, many tobacco farms in the United States employ children to harvest and dry tobacco leaves, resulting in nicotine poisoning and even lung infection in many child laborers.
At the same time, child laborers on farms often operate adult-only farm implements, including large equipment such as tractors, without adequate training or care, leading to many tragedies. On October 17, 2019, in Iowa, the United States, agricultural machinery was busy in the corn field of Grant Kimberley’s family farm.
Xinhua News Agency For growing children, long-term labour can not only have a huge impact on the body, but also may damage their mental health and even cause psychological trauma. Children are the hope of the future.
It is the consensus of the international community to respect and protect children’s rights and free them from heavy labour. The United States has yet to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and has even been repeatedly named and criticized by the International Labour Organization for its serious child labour problem.