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The worst part about dangerous child labor in the US is not just that it exists, and not just that it’s increasing. It’s that some state lawmakers want more of it.

Farm work is the key focus. Agriculture is the deadliest industry for child workers in the country. Labor laws allow children as young as 12 to work on farms for unlimited hours, as long as they don’t miss school. From 16 years old, they can even do work considered hazardous.

In all other sectors of the economy, the situation is different. The basic minimum work age everywhere else is 16, and 14- and 15-year-olds can only work for limited hours in certain jobs. To do hazardous work, you must be 18.

Yet the dangerous and deadly exceptions for child farm labor are apparently not awful enough for lawmakers in some US states. Legislatures in 14 states have introduced new bills that put children at further risk.

A bill in the US state of Iowa, for example, would allow employers to hire kids as young as 14 for previously prohibited hazardous jobs in industrial laundries. It would also allow hazardous work for 16- and 17-year-olds in demolition, roofing, and machine operation.

Political pressure to cut child labor protections is coming from employers complaining about labor shortages, and the impact is already visible. Child labor is on the rise in the US, as are child labor violations.

But some lawmakers at the federal level are pushing back, with two pieces of legislation introduced in the US Congress yesterday.

The first, the Children Don’t Belong on Tobacco Farms Act, pretty much does what it says on the label. It would ban all children (people under 18) from being hired to work on tobacco farms, which is particularly hazardous for children due to the serious health risks of nicotine poisoning.

The second, the Children’s Act for Responsible Employment and Farm Safety, would provide child farmworkers with the same workplace protections as all other working children. It would set the minimum employment age at 14 and the minimum age for hazardous work at 18 – the same as in other industries.

Human Rights Watch is hoping Congress will enact both bills and reverse the grim, rising trend of dangerous child labor in the US.

(written by Chiara Cera)
 
Electric cars are popular in Germany – you see them everywhere. By 2030, Germany is aiming to have 15 million of them. While electric cars have a key role in fighting the climate crisis, producing these vehicles has human rights implications.

To make the electric transition happen, the car industry requires minerals like lithium, cobalt, manganese, and copper. Too often what’s involved in the extraction and processing of these “critical minerals” is child labor, forced labor, and expropriation of land.

In fact, most of these “critical minerals” are currently processed in China, where supply chains are rarely checked for risks of forced labor or other abuses. What’s more, the proposed EU Critical Raw Materials Act may not help, as it relies too much on certification and audits of mines that lack transparency.

Germany has a new supply chains law that could be useful. It obliges companies to identify, prevent, and address risks in their supply chains, and report their steps publicly.

Now, with the law in place, the office that enforces this legislation needs to closely monitor companies in the supply chain producing energy transition minerals and impose fines on those that don’t comply with the new rules.

As my colleague and expert Juliane Kippenberg says, “Responsible business conduct is just as critical as the minerals everyone wants.”

The case of Maria Kalesnikava highlights everything that’s inhuman about the regime in Belarus.

Kalesnikava is a prominent opposition figure, musician, and symbol of the peaceful protest movement for human rights in Belarus. She’s been behind bars since September 2020.

Of course, because this is Belarus, she’s in prison – in solitary confinement in a penal colony, in fact – on ridiculous and completely bogus charges. Essentially, the paranoid authorities couldn’t tolerate her peaceful activism and membership of the opposition. That’s it.

Kalesnikava has had serious health problems, including an operation, while a prisoner. Although the authorities have not allowed her family or lawyer to have any contact with her for almost four months, there are credible reports her health has now deteriorated further.

Penal colony authorities are not providing her with adequate medical care. She is being denied essential foods and medicines.

A group of 24 international and Belarusian human rights organizations are calling on the authorities to show even an ounce of humanity.

(compiled by Aiza Rodrigues Akhtar)

• UN Should Enhance Screening of Bangladesh Peacekeepers (HRW) 
• “As Palestinian youths, the political process has failed us” (BBC) 
• The trans activist devoted to giving dignified burials to her forgotten friends: “I used to keep vigil all alone” (El País, in English) 
• Rights groups to screen BBC film on Modi before White House visit (Al Jazeera) 

Czech outlet Britské listy republished yesterday’s Daily Brief article on the EU’s illegal and immoral approach to migration.