Fingers to the Bone: United States Failure to Protect Child Farmworkers
Author: Tucker, Lee
Date Published: 2000
Agriculture work is the most hazardous and grueling area of employment open to children in the United States. It is also the least protected. Hundreds of thousands of children and teens labor each year in fields, orchards, and packing sheds across the U.S. These hardworking youth labor under more dangerous conditions than their contemporaries working in nonagricultural settings. They are routinely exposed to dangerous pesticides, sometimes working in fields still wet with poison, often given no opportunity to wash their hands before eating lunch. They risk heat exhaustion and dehydration, are deprived access to drinking water, and suffer injuries from sharp knives, heavy equipment, and falls from ladders. Work often interferes with school, and depression affects them more often than other minors. This report documents a wide range of troubling practices--some legal under current domestic law, others illegal--that affect juvenile farmworkers. It recommends numerous changes to U.S. law. Key among these is a recommendation that Congress amend the Fair Labor Standards Act to protect all working children equally. Available on line at http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/frmwrkr/
Date Published: 2000
Agriculture work is the most hazardous and grueling area of employment open to children in the United States. It is also the least protected. Hundreds of thousands of children and teens labor each year in fields, orchards, and packing sheds across the U.S. These hardworking youth labor under more dangerous conditions than their contemporaries working in nonagricultural settings. They are routinely exposed to dangerous pesticides, sometimes working in fields still wet with poison, often given no opportunity to wash their hands before eating lunch. They risk heat exhaustion and dehydration, are deprived access to drinking water, and suffer injuries from sharp knives, heavy equipment, and falls from ladders. Work often interferes with school, and depression affects them more often than other minors. This report documents a wide range of troubling practices--some legal under current domestic law, others illegal--that affect juvenile farmworkers. It recommends numerous changes to U.S. law. Key among these is a recommendation that Congress amend the Fair Labor Standards Act to protect all working children equally. Available on line at http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/frmwrkr/
