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NEW: View the winning artwork from HRW's Student Task Force poster contest about child farmworkers.
Damaris was 13 years old when she began working in the broccoli and lettuce fields of Arizona. During peak season, she would often work 14 hours a day in 100-degree temperatures. For months on end she suffered frequent nosebleeds and nearly passed out on several occasions. Despite illness from exposure to dangerous pesticides, she kept on working. "It was very difficult," she says. "I just endured it."
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UPDATE: On May 10, 2001, Senator Tom Harkin introduced new legislation into the US Senate to address abuseive and exploitive child labor in the United States. A core element of the legislation would eliminate the current double-standard which allows children to work in large-scale commercial agriculture at younger ages, for longer hours, and under more hazardous conditions than children in non-agricultural jobs. Initial co-sponsors of the bill include Senators Kerry, Kennedy, Rockefeller, and Boxer.
The same day, members of Human Rights Watch's California-based Student Task Force, presented over 4000 signatures gathered in a petition campaign to support the legislation during a Capitol Hill Forum on Child Labor.
Write to your Senators to urge them to support stronger protections for child farmworkers such as those proposed by Senator Harkin. Click here for a sample letter.
The United States Government is failing to protect child farmworkers
Cutting spinach, Texas. © Diane Mull. Courtesy of IIECL. |
Hundreds of thousands of children work under dangerous and grueling
conditions as hired laborers in US agriculture. These children risk
serious illness, including cancer and brain damage, from exposure to
pesticides, and suffer high rates of injury. They routinely work twelve
hours a day, six or seven days a week, for little pay
Under existing US law, child farmworkers can work at younger ages, for
longer hours, and under more hazardous conditions than children in other
jobs. Even limited protections in existing law are not adequately
enforced.
Take Action Now!
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