Tag Archive for: Tobacco

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Durbin, Delauro Introduce Bill To Ban Child Labor On Tobacco Farms

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This press release appears on Senator Durbin’s website here  and appears below.

 

Press Release

May 13, 2025

Durbin, Delauro Introduce Bill To Ban Child Labor On Tobacco Farms

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) and U.S. Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03) today reintroduced legislation to protect child workers from the dangers of exposure to tobacco plants, including nicotine poisoning. The Children Don’t Belong on Tobacco Farms Act amends the Fair Labor Standards Act to prohibit children under the age of 18 from working in tobacco fields and coming into direct contact with tobacco plants or dried tobacco leaves by deeming this type of work as oppressive child labor.

“Kids as young as 12 can be recruited to work on tobacco farms where they are exposed to toxic tobacco plants containing nicotine and may experience common symptoms of nicotine poisoning like nausea, vomiting, headaches, and dizziness. Putting a stop to this disgraceful labor practice is simple and common sense,” Durbin said. “With the Children Don’t Belong on Tobacco Farms Act, Congress can finally act to protect these kids before it’s too late.”

“Big Tobacco has spent decades profiting off children – by targeting them as customers and exploiting their labor,” said DeLauro. “Right now, kids as young as 12 are working in tobacco fields, exposed to toxic levels of nicotine that can cause lasting harm. That is why I’m proud to join Senator Durbin in introducing the Children Don’t Belong on Tobacco Farms Act to finally ban child labor in tobacco production. Children’s health must come before corporate profit.”

Although U.S. law prohibits children under the age of 18 from buying cigarettes, children as young as 12 are permitted to work in tobacco fields, where handling tobacco plants can lead to nicotine poisoning. Tobacco companies and growers’ associations in the U.S. have adopted voluntary standards to limit child labor in tobacco work. However, researchers found that children under 16 were still working in tobacco more than a year after many companies announced that they would prohibit hiring workers younger than that age. This bill would codify this implicit agreement that a tobacco farm is no place for children to work.

A 2015 Human Rights Watch study based on interviews with 33 children working in North Carolina tobacco farms found that:

  • Children working on tobacco farms worked up to 50-60 hours per week;
  • Children experienced nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, dizziness, lightheadedness, headaches, and sleeplessness while working on tobacco farms;
  • Children worked in hot conditions with jobs ranging from harvesting tobacco plants to applying toxic pesticides;
  • Children are directly exposed to those pesticides from spraying fields. Many pesticides used in tobacco production are known neurotoxins. Long-term effects include cancer, neurological deficits, and reproductive health problems.

Along with Durbin, U.S. Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) are cosponsors of the Children Don’t Belong on Tobacco Farms Act.

2024 Domestic Child Labor Bills the Child Labor Coalition endorses:

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Bills to increase fines:

  • R. 2956 — “Combating Child Labor Act” by Rep. Kildee (D-MI) 42 cosponsors as of  4/16/2024
  • R. 2388 — “Justice for Exploited Children Act of 2023” by Rep. Scholten (D-MI)

7 cosponsors as of 4/16/2024. [This bill is Bipartisan].

  • 637 — “Child Labor Prevention Act” by Sen. Schatz (D-HI)

12 cosponsors as of 4/16/2024

  • 3051 – Stop Child Labor Act by Senator Schatz (D-HI)

1 cosponsor as of 4/16/2024 [This bill is an update of Schatz’s bill listed prior and is also bipartisan]

 

Bills that seek increased fines AND multiple other improvements:

  • R. 6079 – CHILD Labor Act by Rep. DeLauro (D-CT) also known as “Children Harmed in Life-threatening or Dangerous Labor Act”

21 cosponsors as of 4/16/2024

  • 3163 – CHILD Labor Act by Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) also known as “Children Harmed in Life-threatening or Dangerous Labor Act” [Companion bill to H.R. 6079]

16 cosponsors as of 4/16/2024

  • R. 4440 – “Protecting Children Act” by Rep. Scott (D-VA) 8 Cosponsors as of 8/11/23

9 cosponsors as of 4/16/2024

 

 

Protecting child farmworkers:

  • R. 4020 – “Children Don’t Belong on Tobacco Farms Act by Rep. DeLauro” (D-CT)

2 cosponsors as of 4/16/24

  • 1921 – “Children Don’t Belong on Tobacco Farms Act” by Senator Durbin (D-IL)

3 cosponsors as of 4/16/2024

  • R.4046 – “Children’s Act for Responsible Employment and Farm Safety — CARE Act” by Rep. Ruiz (D-CA)

45 cosponsors as of 4/16/2024

  • 4038 – “Children’s Act for Responsible Employment and Farm Safety — CARE Act” by Senator Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM)

0 Cosponsor listed, but we’re told Senator Casey has agreed to cosponsor.

 

Procurement Bills regarding child labor:

  • 1288 — “Child Labor Exploitation Accountability Act” by Sen. Booker (D-NJ)

5 cosponsors as of 4/16/2024

  • 3139 – “Preventing Child Labor Exploitation Act” by Sen. Booker (D-NJ). [This is an update of the prior Booker procurement bill and is now bipartisan].

1 cosponsor as of 3/7/2024

  • R. 2822 — “Child Labor Exploitation Accountability Act” by Rep. Casar (D-TX)

34 cosponsors as of 4/16/2024

 

Bill to improve labor inspectorate

 

  • R. 6634 — Workers POWER Act by Rep. McGarvey (D-KY) also known as “Workers Protecting Our Wage Earners Act”

50 Cosponsors as of 5/15/2024

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Do Children in America Ever Work in Deplorable, Dangerous, Dickensian Conditions?  The Short Answer is “Yes” — The Child Labor Coalition’s Top Ten U.S. Child Labor Developments in 2022

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By Reid Maki, Child Labor Coalition

 

Most Americans are unaware that the U.S. still has child labor, but 2022 made it abundantly clear that we do, and stories in the news exposed conditions that were often downright shocking. Here are 10 child labor stories or developments that indicate child labor in the U.S. is not something in the past and continues to be a serious concern. The  Child Labor Coalition brings together 39 groups to work collectively to reduce international and domestic child labor and to protect working teens from occupational dangers. Our top 2022 U.S. developments:

  • Minors found working illegally in Brazilian-owned JBS meatpacking facilities in Nebraska and Minnesota. Several children suffered caustic chemical burns, including one 13-year-old. The children worked on the killing floor in cleaning crews, toiling long nights in the graveyard shift and used dangerous pressure-washing hoses while they stood in water mixed with animal parts. Initially, the number of children numbered 31 in Nebraska and Minnesota, but U.S. DOL has suggested the number of illegally employed teens in processing plant cleaning crews may be much larger. The CLC has expressed concerns about teens illegally working in meat processing plants since a large immigration raid in Iowa in 2003 found 50 minors working illegally in the plant.
  • Teens found working in an Alabama factory that supplied parts to Hyundai. In July, labor officials found three siblings, aged 12, 14, and 15, working in an Alabama stamping plant that supplied part to the car manufacturer Hyundai. According to reports, a larger number of minors worked in the factory in recent years. The story drew enormous publicity because factory-based child labor in the U.S. has become rare.
  • The Wisconsin legislature passed a bill to weaken child labor laws by expanding the hours of teen work, which endangers children’s educational development and presents certain health risks. The CLC amplified the work of labor unions on social media, we also wrote a letter to Gov. Tony Evers, urging him to veto the proposed legislation, which he did in February. According to research, high school age workers who toil more than 20 hours a week get lower grades and have an increased risk of dropping out.
  • An estimated 300,000 children still work for wages in agriculture, performing backbreaking labor in searing heat. Currently, federal law allows children who are only 12 to work unlimited hours as long as they are working when school is not in session. Federal legislation which would protect child farmworkers, the Children’s Act for Responsible Employment and Farm Safety (CARE), H.R. 7345, would raise the minimum age of farm work from 12 to at least 14 and lift the age of hazardous work from the current 16 to 18—the same as all other sectors. CARE saw some promising developments in 2022, including the holding of a congressional hearing on the bill—the first since 2009. We also secured over 200 organizational endorsements for CARE and we worked with CLC-members Human Rights Watch, Justice for Migrant Women, and First Focus Campaign for Children to obtain 47 CARE legislative cosponsors.
  • The Children Don’t Belong on Tobacco Farms Act, H.R. 3865 –and its companion bill S.2044—would ban child labor on U.S. tobacco farms where children toil long hours and routinely suffer symptoms of nicotine poisoning such as vomiting, fainting, dizziness, headaches and nausea. In a desperate attempt to keep nicotine off their skin, many teen tobacco workers toil while wearing black plastic garbage bags with holes punched out for their arms and head. Some teens work at great heights and great danger in tobacco drying barns. In the U.S., you have to be 21 to buy cigarettes but at age 12, you can work on tobacco farms and suffer poisoning from toxic nicotine. In the 117th congressional session, we helped secure 32 cosponsors for H.R. 3865—more than double the amount of cosponsors in the 116th.
  • Enforcement of domestic child labor laws in 2022 through mid-November saw an almost 40 percent increase in the number of child workers involved in a violation of child labor rules—nearly 4,000 children, according to reporting by DailyMail.com, using Department of Labor data. Nearly 20 percent of the violations involved teens performing hazardous work.
  • USDOL and state labor agencies frequently found child labor violations among fast food restaurants. Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey fined Dunkin’, the donut franchises, $145,000 for over 1,200 child labor violations in 14 stores. U.S. DOL found violations in 13 Pittsburgh area McDonalds restaurants in which teens worked too many hours or too late, as well as a case of a teen doing prohibited hazardous work
  • In September, Human Rights Watch, a CLC member, issued a child rights report card for all U.S. states related to child marriage, child labor, juvenile justice, and corporal punishment, and how well they meet the standards set by the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Alarmingly, only four states earned passing grades: 20 received an “F”; 26 received a “D”; four received a “C” and none received a “B” or and “A.” See the grades and report here.
  • In July, Massachusetts became the seventh US state to ban entirely child marriage. Like child marriage globally, U.S. child marriage has substantial health, educational, and financial impacts on teen girls who marry. Most states have broad exemptions that allow teens to marry with the approval of parents or the courts. Massachusetts joins six other states that passed legislation to end child marriage: New York, Delaware, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and Minnesota. The CLC is a member of the National Coalition to End Child Marriage, headed by the NGO Unchained at Last.
  • The CLC and HRW held a series of meetings with Wage and Hour in 2022 to secure the reopening of the occupational child safety rules for agriculture called “Hazardous Occupation Orders.” These common-sense rules have not been updated for agriculture in roughly four decades despite many lessons-learned about farm injuries during that time. We also helped Rep. Roybal-Allard and Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) draft and circulate a letter to DOL Secretary Walsh urging enhanced safety precautions. The letter had 46 congressional signatories.

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US Should Protect Young Farmworkers–Lawmakers, Labor Department Need to Act

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Margaret Wurth
Margaret Wurth
Senior Researcher, Children’s Rights Division

[This piece originally appeared on at www.hrw.org on June 13, 2022]

As the world marks another World Day Against Child Labor, US leaders should commit to ending child labor at home.

Globally, countries have reduced the number of children involved in child labor – defined as work performed by children below the minimum age of employment or children under age 18 engaged in hazardous work – from 245 million in 2000 to 160 million in 2020. Meanwhile, US protections for child farmworkers are as weak as ever.

Under US law, children can work in agriculture from younger ages, for longer hours, and in more hazardous conditions than children working in any other sector. Today, it is legal for 12-year-old children to work unlimited hours on a farm of any size, as long as they have a parent’s permission and they don’t miss school. Children that young cannot legally work in any other sector in the US. In agriculture, children at age 16 can do work considered “hazardous” by the US Labor Secretary, while in every other sector children must be 18.

Lawmakers in Congress have introduced legislation to close these gaps. The Children’s Act for Responsible Employment and Farm Safety (CARE Act) would amend US labor law to raise the minimum hiring age in agriculture to 14, and the minimum age for hazardous work to 18, matching the minimum ages for other areas of work.

Another important bill, the Children Don’t Belong on Tobacco Farms Act, would prohibit children under 18 from work involving direct contact with tobacco , a toxic crop containing nicotine. Congress should pass both of these bills.

But child farmworkers also need the Department of Labor to take action to provide safer work environments. The Labor Department has the authority to determine which jobs are considered hazardous and off limits to the youngest children working on farms. The list of hazardous occupations in agriculture has not been updated since 1970 and is way too narrow.

Labor Secretary Marty Walsh has repeatedly committed to ending child labor worldwide. At an event this month, he said child labor is, “a denial of fundamental human labor rights and it’s unacceptable.” He’s right. And he has the power to do something about it. Secretary Walsh should initiate a new rulemaking process to update these regulations.

Child farmworkers have waited long enough for the basic workplace protections that all other working children have.

“Sofia,” a 17-year-old tobacco worker, in a tobacco field in North Carolina. She started working at 13. She tries to protect herself from nicotine poisoning by wearing plastic trash bags and a mask. COVID presents new and scary risks. © 2015 Benedict Evans for Human Rights Watch

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It’s Time for U.S. Tobacco Companies to Protect All Child Tobacco Workers with a Complete Ban on Children in Tobacco Fields

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By Reid Maki, Child Labor Coalition

In 2014, under pressure from advocacy groups like the Child Labor Coalition and Human Rights Watch (HRW) concerned about hazardous child labor on tobacco farms, several tobacco companies operating in the U.S. announced they would only buy tobacco from growers who agree not to hire children under 16 to work in contact with tobacco plants.

Child rights and human rights groups had been pushing for a ban on all children – aged 17 and below – from harvesting tobacco because of health problems related to nicotine exposure. These negative health impacts were well-documented in Tobacco’s Hidden Children, a report from HRW published in May 2014.

“Children interviewed by Human Rights Watch in North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia frequently described feeling seriously, acutely sick, while working in tobacco farming,” noted HRW.  Carla P., 16, who worked for hire on tobacco farms in Kentucky with her parents and her younger sister told Human Rights Watch she got sick while pulling the tops off tobacco plants: “I didn’t feel well, but I still kept working. I started throwing up. I was throwing up for like 10 minutes, just what I ate. I took a break for a few hours, and then I went back to work.’

In the U.S., many teens who work in tobacco fields wear plastic garbage bags to try to avoid nicotine poisoning. [Photo courtesy Human Rights Watch]

Another child worker interviewed by HRW, Emilio R., a 16-year-old seasonal worker in eastern North Carolina, said he had headaches that sometimes lasted up to two days while working in tobacco: “With the headaches, it was hard to do anything at all. I didn’t want to move my head.”

Some children describe the flu-like symptoms of nicotine poisoning as “feeling like I was going to die.”

HRW researchers found that “many of the symptoms reported by child tobacco workers are consistent with acute nicotine poisoning, known as Green Tobacco Sickness, an occupational health risk specific to tobacco farming that occurs when workers absorb nicotine through their skin while having prolonged contact with tobacco plants.” Dizziness, headaches, nausea, and vomiting are the most common symptoms of acute nicotine poisoning. Three-quarters of the children interviewed by HRW in the report noted the onset of health symptoms when they began tobacco work, and many of those symptoms correlated with nicotine absorption.

U.S. child labor law is of no help in dealing with this problem. American law has exemptions for agriculture that allow children who are only 12 to work unlimited hours on farms as long as they are not missing work.

When the tobacco companies agreed to protect the youngest child workers, it seemed like an important step forward. But six years later, we have concerns that the voluntary ban is not working.

Over the last six years, partner organizations in North Carolina have told us that younger children are still working in tobacco fields.

A recent health impacts study on child farmworkers in North Carolina (“Latinx child farmworkers in North Carolina: Study design and participant baseline characteristics” in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, November 28, 2018) by researchers at Wake Forest School of Medicine reported data that suggests children under 16 continue to work in tobacco fields.

In 2017, the first year Wake Forest researchers interviewed farmworker children for the study — and three years after the tobacco companies’ voluntary age restriction, researchers interviewed 202 children and found 116 had worked tobacco in the week before the interview. Nearly half — 56 of the child tobacco workers were under 16 (48 percent!). Remember, this number is supposed to be zero.

 Yes, it’s just one study, but in the absence of federal and state data, which is notoriously poor when it comes to counting child farmworkers, it suggests that in North Carolina, one of the four prime tobacco-growing states, nearly half of child tobacco workers are under 16. It confirms what we had been hearing anecdotally from farmworker groups in North Carolina—the tobacco companies’ policy isn’t working.

Children in the U.S. are not allowed to perform work that has been labeled hazardous by the U.S. Department of Labor. You must be 18 to do dangerous work in all sectors except agriculture—an exemption that also needs to end. Tobacco has not been labeled as dangerous work, even though everyone agrees that it is. Even tobacco companies acknowledge the work is too hazardous for young children. That’s why the tobacco companies in 2014 said young children should not do it.

 Children who are under 18 cannot buy cigarettes in a store yet they are permitted to work 10 or 12 hour days in tobacco fields while enduring stifling heat and breathing nicotine though the air and absorbing it through their skin. Many children are so desperate to avoid contact with nicotine that they work in black garbage backs with holes cut out for their arms and legs. The plastic cuts down on absorption but wearing black plastic bags in the broiling sun and searing heat has it’s own dangers.

The emergence of COVID-19 raises our concern level even further. Farmworker communities have proven particularly vulnerable to COVID-19. With schools closed for the summer and many parents sick, we fear that the number of children from desperately poor farmworker families who seek jobs on tobacco farms may increase.

Federal legislation, the Children Don’t Belong on Tobacco Farms Act, could fix this problem with a total ban on child labor in U.S. tobacco. Unfortunately, versions of the bill, in both the U.S. House and Senate, are not expected to pass any time soon. Child farmworkers, often poor and Latino, are generally at the bottom of congressional priority lists.

American tobacco companies have had six years to try a piecemeal approach that is not working. We need tobacco companies to step up and do the right thing and ban child work in tobacco.

 

Reid Maki is the coordinator of the Child Labor Coalition, which consists of 38 groups committed to ending child labor in the U.S. and abroad. He is also NCL’s director of child labor advocacy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Child Labor in U.S. Tobacco: Why Can’t We Make it Stop?

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By Kendra Moesle, Program Communications Coordinator

Kendra Moesle, Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs

Children in the Fields Campaign (CIFC) is an active member of the Child Labor Coalition, which strives to combat child labor here in the U.S. and abroad.  Also partners with us on that coalition is the 100 Million Campaign:  a worldwide movement led by kids advocating for kids, whose call to action is “for a world where all young people are free, safe, and educated”.

In the U.S., the local chapter of the 100 Million Campaign has taken on child labor in tobacco, something that has been a problem in the U.S. for a long time due to the inequality of U.S. labor laws.  When the 100 Million Campaign’s youth-led National Planning Committee met and discussed the number of issues before them, Executive Director of the Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation US, Anjali Kochar, says they felt this was “the moment in time” when something could finally be done about child labor in tobacco.  In conversations that the campaign hosted in schools across the country, this seemed to be the most galvanizing issue to young people, simply because “it just didn’t add up.”  How is it illegal for minors to buy tobacco products, kids wondered, and yet it can still be perfectly legal for them to manufacture the stuff?

 

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Group picture of Child Labor Coalition members on the steps of AFT, following a February 2019 dialogue with Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi and Sumedha Kailash about the 100 Million Campaign.

 

CIFC believes that no child should be exposed to hazardous work in agriculture, and this is especially true in tobacco, which poses additional risks to children.  When kids work in tobacco, they are inevitably exposed to the nicotine that seeps through their clothes from the raw tobacco leaves.  This exposure leads to Green Tobacco Sickness (GTS), a preventable illness whose symptoms include vomiting, nausea, insomnia, and more.

People ask the question:  Why don’t workers just wear gloves? Wouldn’t that solve the problem of absorbing nicotine and contracting GTS?

 

But gloves are not officially required for this work, so employers do not provide them.  Farmworker kids are also too poor to afford them – especially since the gloves wear out quickly and would frequently need to be replaced.  Children are also more sensitive to nicotine absorption (hence why they’re not allowed to smoke cigarettes!) and their immune systems are not fully developed, which is why it’s imperative that they never be placed in a situation where they might contract Green Tobacco Sickness in the first place.

Some farmworker children who work in tobacco do understand the dangers they face – and so they attempt to cover themselves up with black trash bags, particularly on days when the fields are wet and chances of nicotine absorption are even higher.  But when temperatures reach into the triple digits, they have to take off the suffocating trash bags or risk falling deathly ill to heat stroke.  If you’ve ever been inside a tobacco field in the South in summertime, you’ll know that temperatures run ten+ degrees hotter there than in the surrounding area, which is already oppressively hot & humid.  One article in the Kentucky New Era ran a story with this headline:  “Think it’s hot? Step into a tobacco field.”

 

A young man stands with his arms raised above his head, supporting a load of harvested tobacco leaves. He faces striated green fields and a horizon that glows orange at sunset.
Artwork submitted to CIFC art & essay contest, by William S., a 10-year-old boy and tobacco child laborer.

Working in tobacco poses such a clear danger to kids, that there’s been more legislative noise about it than most domestic child labor issues.  But here we are, on the cusp of 2020, and children ages 12 and up (& often younger) are still allowed to carry out this dangerous work.

All of which begs the question:  what needs to happen for this hazardous labor to stop?  Well, there are a number of options available to us:

  1. Tobacco companies can self-regulate. In an op-ed for the Guardian, Child Labor Coalition coordinator Reid Maki called on the tobacco industry to raise the minimum age of work on their tobacco farms to 18.  Unfortunately, and for obvious reasons, they have yet to do this.  Children will typically accept lower wages for their work, which motivates employers and corporations to continue the practice.
  2. Congress could pass a law prohibiting child labor in tobacco. In 2018, 50 Congressmen and women expressed support for such a ban.  Unfortunately, that did not reach the threshold that was needed to draft and pass a law.  The current bill in the House, “H.R.3229: Children Don’t Belong on Tobacco Farms Act,” has only a handful of co-sponsors.
  3. The president could order the Department of Labor to write new regulations for the FLSA that would restrict the practice. This was very nearly accomplished in 2012, but the proposed regs were abruptly withdrawn after fierce opposition was expressed by corporations and the American Farm Bureau lobby.

 

Call us crazy, but we continue to have hope that our country will soon do what’s necessary to save our children.  The longer we work on this issue, the more fervently we believe that ‘something’s gotta give’!

So, here’s our message to the new year:  2020, please don’t let us down.

In the U.S., many teens who work in tobacco fields wear plastic garbage bags to try to avoid nicotine poisoning. [Photo courtesy Human Rights Watch]

 
Contributed by Kendra Moesle, Program Communications Coordinator, Children in the Fields Campaign, Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs. This blog originally appeared on AFOP’s web site.

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Children Working in Terrifying Conditions in US Agriculture — New Research Shows Child Farmworkers Unprepared for Workplace Dangers

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By Margaret Wurth

Senior Researcher, Children’s Rights Division, Human Rights Watch (HRW)

Margaret Wurth, HRW

New research published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine reinforces just how dangerous agricultural work is for children in the United States – and how unprepared most are for what they face in the fields.

More US child workers die in agriculture than in any other industry. Every day, 33 children are injured while working on US farms. And they receive frighteningly little safety training, making their work in demanding environments even more dangerous.

Researchers from Wake Forest School of Medicine interviewed 30 child farmworkers, ages 10 to 17, and published their findings in two articles that describe how children are pressured to work quickly, with little control over their hours or the nature of their work.

“Sofia,” a 17-year-old tobacco worker, in a tobacco field in North Carolina. She started working at 13, and she said her mother was the only one who taught her how to protect herself in the fields: “None of my bosses or contractors or crew leaders have ever told us anything about pesticides and how we can protect ourselves from them….When I worked with my mom, she would take care of me, and she would like always make sure I was okay.…Our bosses don’t give us anything except for our checks. That’s it.” © 2015 Benedict Evans for Human Rights Watch.

 

The children interviewed feared having their pay docked or being fired if they couldn’t keep up.

They received little – if any – safety training. One 14-year-old worker said: “When you’re chopping with the machete, they say, ‘Oh, be careful, like, to not hurt yourself,’ but that’s basically it.”

Children I’ve interviewed for Human Rights Watch investigations of child labor in US tobacco farming had similar experiences, working long hours in extreme heat with virtually no safety training.

One 15-year-old child worker told me his mom – also a farmworker – was hospitalized after being sprayed with pesticides, but even then, his employer never told him how protect himself: “He just said, ‘Be careful.’ That’s all.”

Read more

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Report Traces Goods Made with Child Labor to 76 Countries

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Of the products we use, wear, or consume every day, how many are made with child labor? Perhaps quite a few. A new report from the US Department of Labor identifies 148 different consumer goods produced with child or forced labor around the world. The list includes clothing, beef, sugar, bricks, coffee, and other products originating from 76 countries.

Gold tops the list. The report found that in at least 21 countries, children help mine gold, climbing into unstable shafts, carrying and crushing heavy loads of ore, and often using toxic mercury to process the gold. My colleagues and I have seen how dangerous this work can be, documenting the risks child miners face in Ghana, Philippines, Tanzania, and Mali.

Tobacco produced with child labor originates from at least 16 countries, placing it in the report’s top five. Child tobacco workers often labor in extreme heat, are exposed to dangerous pesticides, and risk nicotine poisoning from handling tobacco plants. In our investigations, children in the United States, Indonesia, and Zimbabwe have described nausea, vomiting, headaches, and dizziness while working in tobacco fields.

Governments, companies, and consumers share responsibility to end child labor. Governments should monitor and enforce their labor laws and provide children with good-quality, free education.

For children old enough to work, both governments and companies should ensure their jobs do not risk anyone’s health or safety. Companies should also monitor their supply chains, report on their efforts, and when child labor is found, transition these children to school or safe alternatives. Our report on the jewelry industry outlines steps companies should take.  

Consumers can ask retailers and manufacturers about their child labor policies and practices.

A young girl ties tobacco leaves onto sticks to prepare them for curing in East Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara.

A young girl ties tobacco leaves onto sticks to prepare them for curing in East Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia.

 © 2015 Marcus Bleasdale for Human Rights Watch

Ending child labor is possible. Since 2000, the number of children involved in it has dropped by a third ‒ from 245 million to 152 million. In the last two years, the Department of Labor found that 17 governments have made “significant” advancement in ending child labor, and another 60 have made “moderate” advancements. It noted particular progress in ending child labor in Panama’s sugar production, and cotton harvesting in Paraguay and Uzbekistan.

Still, we have a long way to go. Products that are part of our daily lives shouldn’t come at the expense of children’s health, safety, and education.


 
Jo Becker is the advocacy director of the Children’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, which is a member of the Child Labor Coalition.
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American 12-Year-Olds Can’t Buy Cigarettes. Why Can They Work in Tobacco Fields?

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[This op-ed appeared in The Guardian on June 28, 2018. You may view it there by clicking here.]

It’s no surprise that working in tobacco fields is dangerous. Smoking tobacco kills 6 to 7 million people a year, according to the World Health Organization. The same nicotine that makes tobacco so dangerous – and addictive – harms workers in tobacco fields. What is a surprise to many is that child workers are among those harmed and the United States allows 12-year-olds to work for wages in toxic tobacco fields where children are exposed to nicotine and toxic pesticides.

In the U.S., many teens who work in tobacco fields wear plastic garbage bags to try to avoid nicotine poisoning. [Photo courtesy Human Rights Watch]

When the seminal legislation the Fair Labor Standards Act was passed in 1938, it exempted agriculture from its extensive labor protections, including child labor. Most analysts agree that racism played a part in this decision – many agricultural workers were poor black people and the southern congressional leaders who controlled many committees had little interest in protecting them from labor abuses.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), whom we partner with on the US-based Child Labor Coalition, has confirmed that tobacco work is too dangerous for teen workers. Its 2014 report, Tobacco’s Hidden Children: Hazardous Child Labor in United States Tobacco Farming, featured the results of interviews of 140 child tobacco workers and found the majority had suffered symptoms that correlated with frequent bouts of “green tobacco sickness” – essentially nicotine poisoning.

The child laborers described nausea, dizziness, fatigue and other symptoms that left them feeling “like you’re going to die”. It’s clear that children absorb nicotine while they work from residue on tobacco leaves and from particulates in the air, but just how much is uncertain. Estimates differ from the equivalent of smoking six cigarettes a day to smoking over 30. The long-term impact of that absorption is not yet known.

In the US, a 12-year-old cannot legally walk into a store and buy cigarettes, but the law allows that same child to work in a tobacco field. A 16-year-old child tobacco worker told HRW that tobacco was “the hardest of all the crops we’ve worked in. You get tired. It takes the energy out of you. You get sick, but then you have to go right back to the tobacco the next day.”

Read more

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CLC News Release: Legislation to Protect Child Farmworkers in the US is Re-Introduced

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CHILD LABOR COALITION PRESS RELEASE
Child Labor Coalition applauds the introduction of two congressional bills to reduce dangerous child labor in U.S. agriculture

For immediate release: June 13, 2017
Contact: Reid Maki, (202) 207-2820, reidm@nclnet.org

Washington, DC—The Child Labor Coalition (CLC) and its 35 members applaud the re-introduction late yesterday of two congressional bills that would significantly reduce child labor in U.S. agriculture and largely equalize child labor laws for wage-earning children on farms with current rules for non-farm work.

In the U.S., many teens who work in tobacco fields wear plastic garbage bags to try to avoid nicotine poisoning. [Photo courtesy Human Rights Watch]

In the U.S., many teens who work in tobacco fields wear plastic garbage bags to try to avoid nicotine poisoning. [Photo courtesy Human Rights Watch]

In the House of Representatives, Rep. Roybal-Allard (D-CA) re-introduced the Children’s Act for Responsible Employment (CARE), which would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act, removing the exemptions that prevent the nation’s child labor laws from applying to children who work for wages on farms.

“A 12-year-old is not allowed to work in our air-conditioned office,” said Sally Greenberg, executive director of the National Consumers League and a co-chair of the CLC. “Yet, that same child is allowed to work unlimited hours, seven days a week on a farm, performing back-breaking work.”

CARE would also raise the age at which children laboring on farms can perform hazardous work from 16 to 18, which is the norm for all non-farm work. “We lose far too many children to work accidents on farms,” said CLC Coordinator Reid Maki. “This change is long overdue.”

“Child farmworkers work at far younger ages, for longer hours, and under more hazardous conditions than children are allowed to work in any other industry. It’s time to end this double standard in U.S. law and ensure they have the same protections as other working youth,” said CLC-member Jo Becker, children’s rights advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.

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CLC members—the Ramsay Merriam Fund, the American Federation of Teachers, and the National Education Association—made this web site possible through their generous support.

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