Child Labor on the Farm

Friday’s episode of Al Jazeera’s documentary program Fault Lines focused on child labor in the United States; E. Tammy Kim wrote the accompanying feature article on their website (such a good idea). It’s legal for kids 12 and over to work on farms with parental permission, but many younger kids work on farms across the country, usually with their migrant-worker parents. (“Lack of child care and dangerous conditions in migrant labor camps lead many farmworkers to take their children along with them to the fields. The younger ones may play or wait in the car; the older ones often end up picking crops themselves. A 2010 report by Human Rights Watch found that ‘hundreds of thousands of children are working as hired laborers in agriculture.’”)

Fault Lines provides background and supplemental reading for all its episodes (what a show, really). From a 2012 Oregonian article they highlight: “Nearly everyone involved has an incentive to allow underage labor. Farmers need crops picked, farmworkers need money children bring home and advocates for workers risk alienating whole families if they broach the subject. The tenuous residency status of many Mexican-born workers also plays a role.”

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