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Hundreds of
thousands of children work in the fields in the United States. No one knows how many children work in agriculture in the United States. In 1998, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimated the number at 300,000. The United Farm Workers union (UFW) believes that the number may be closer to 800,000. | |
| Most of the children working in agriculture are Latino. An estimated 85 percent of migrant and seasonal farm workers are racial minorities. In some communities, 99 percent of the farmworkers are Latino. An increasing number of immigrant youth between the ages of 14 and 17 are migrating to the United States from Mexico and Central America to perform farm labor. In 1997, a Department of Labor report estimated that there were 55,000 of these child laborers traveling without the protection of their immediate families. | |
These
Latino children are dropping out of school at an alarming rate.Half the youth who regularly perform farm work never graduate from high school. Report authors found that children in agriculture work, on average, 30 hours a week, often during times of the year when school is in session. Long hours in the field make it difficult to succeed in school.
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Children
working in agriculture face serious health threats.Children account for about 20 percent of all farm fatalities. According to the Government Accountability Office, in 1998, more than 100,000 children and teens are injured on farms each year. Farmworkers regularly work in fields treated with pesticides—some of which are known carcinogens. Child farmworkers are exposed to the same pesticide levels as adults, yet likely face a far greater health risk. In March 2003, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated that children under two may be 10 times more vulnerable to cancer from chemicals and pesticides that cause gene mutations. Children ages three to 15 may experience at least three times the cancer threat the same chemicals pose to adults, said the EPA. Yet, the Agency has not established additional protections for working children under the Worker Protection Standard, the body of regulations that limits farmworkers’ exposure to recently sprayed fields.
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Farmworker
children are not being afforded the same protection as other working children.Federal laws permit a child aged 13 to work in 100-degree heat in a strawberry field, but do not permit that child to work in an air-conditioned office. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) the legal age to perform most farm work is only 12 if a parent accompanies the working child. Children who are 14 or older can work unlimited hours in the fields before or after school hours. The same law requires a minimum age of 14 years for non-agricultural work and limits such work to 3 hours per day while school is in session. Farmworker children should not receive less protection from labor laws because they must work in agriculture—an industry that no longer deserves sweeping exemptions to the Fair Labor Standards Act, legislation that was enacted 65 ago when our national economy was vastly different.
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| We must provide support services to farmworker families and children. Many children work with their families or play in the fields because their families cannot find or afford childcare. There are federal programs for migrant youth—Migrant Head Start and Migrant Education—that need to be fully funded so that all migrant and seasonal farmworker families have access to safe and affordable child care. A study in 2001 found that only 19 percent of the eligible migrant children and 2 percent of the eligible seasonal children in our country were being served. This compares to a 60 percent national rate of participation. | |
| We must ensure that farmworker families make a living wage. Many migrant children work to supplement family income. In 1997, researchers found that three quarters of farmworkers earned less than $10,000. Nearly three in 10 farmworkers (28 percent) had personal incomes below $2,500 a year. | |
| We must act now to protect child farmworkers. It’s time to address the unequal treatment of child farmworkers under the law. The 107th Congress considered legislation to remedy the problem but did not act. Please urge members of the 108th Congress to revise the Fair Labor Standards Act to remove exemptions that allow children working in agriculture to work longer hours at younger ages and to perform hazardous work at younger ages than children working in other industries. |
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