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ASSOCIATED PRESS
Two federal agencies promise stronger efforts to curb exploitation of
child farmworkers
David Crary, The Associated Press
NEW
This week, against the backdrop of a stinging new report from Human
Rights Watch, two federal agencies are pledging to do better. And
prospects are brightening, though still uncertain, for a pending bill in
Congress that would close loopholes that facilitate many of the abuses.
Human Rights Watch, which focuses most of its investigative work
overseas, had examined the exploitation of America's child farmworkers
in a report 10 years ago. It documented the harm many of these children
suffered to their health and education, and assailed existing legal
protections as weak and poorly enforced.
In its new report, released Wednesday, the group said conditions for the
estimated 300,000 to 400,000 child farmworkers "remain virtually as they
were" and faulted Congress, the Labor Department and the Environmental
Protection Agency for failing to take effective action.
"The Labor Department has done a very bad job up to now," said report
author Zama Coursen-Neff, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's
Children's Rights Division. "I've investigated child labour in India, in
El Salvador. Child labour in America looks like some of those places. It
looks like what people think happens only in other countries."
Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, who shares a Hispanic background with a
majority of the young farmworkers, commended Human Rights Watch for its
report and said ending illegal child labour is a top priority of her
department.
"We simply cannot — and this administration will not — stand by while
youngsters working on farms are robbed of their childhood," Solis said
Wednesday. The agency has added more than 250 new field investigators in
the last year and planned to add even more, she said.
Human Rights Watch also criticized the EPA, saying its regulations
regarding pesticide use on farms did not adequately consider the special
vulnerabilities of child workers.
In response, the EPA said it was working to strengthen its assessment of
pesticide health risks, in part to improve conditions for child workers,
and expected to propose amendments to federal worker protection
standards by 2012.
"Many of the concerns mentioned in the Human Rights Watch report are
sound," the EPA said.
Whatever federal agencies try to do, many child farmworkers may remain
exposed to onerous conditions unless Congress passes a bill that would
amend the Fair Labor Standards Act regulating child labour.
Under that 1938 law, enacted when family farms abounded, children
working on farms are allowed to work longer hours, at a younger age and
in more hazardous conditions than children in other jobs.
Children as young as 12 can work on farms, as opposed to at least 14 or
16 for other jobs. For nonfarm jobs, there's a limit of three hours of
work a day outside school hours while school is in session; young
farmworkers can work unlimited hours outside school.
Democratic Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard from California, has introduced a
bill that would eliminate those discrepancies, increase penalties for
violations and require the Labor Department to collect better data on
the number of child labourers and the injuries they suffer. It would
continue to exempt children working on their parents' farms.
The bill has 87 co-sponsors, and Roybal-Allard is optimistic of getting
more support. She noted that Solis wrote to the chairman of the House
Education and Labor Committee this week calling for "robust legislation"
to strengthen protections of child farmworkers.
No Republican, however, has signed on as a co-sponsor, and the American
Farm Bureau — which advocates in Washington on behalf of farmers and
ranchers — opposes it.
"We think it's going too far to resolve a problem that's very isolated,"
said Ron Gaskill, the bureau's senior director of congressional
relations. "At what point do you take away the opportunity for rural
youth to get gainful work experience?"
The U.S. Agriculture Department, while not directly involved in labour
regulation, said it would support tougher enforcement.
"Farmers and ranchers, most of whom are law-abiding citizens, should not
have their efforts to provide a safe and abundant supply of food and
fiber tainted by those taking advantage of the most vulnerable in our
society," said USDA spokesman Caleb Weaver.
Roybal-Allard said she often hears from skeptics of her bill that some
farmworker families need the extra money earned by their children.
"We have cheapest food in the world. You'd think we'd be able to pay a
living wage to these families," she said in a telephone interview.
"These families really pay a much greater price in the health and safety
of their children."
Among the persistent problems cited by Roybal-Allard and Human Rights
Watch:
—Children working on farms typically make less than the minimum wage.
—They drop out of school at four times the national rate.
—Safety risks are high, contributing to at least 43 work-related deaths
of child farmworkers between 2005 and 2008.
—Current law allows 16- and 17-year-olds to do farm work that the Labor
Department deems "particularly hazardous." In nonfarm sectors, no one
under 18 can do such jobs.
Activists said the problems for some farmworker families are compounded
because one or more members are illegal immigrants who are wary of
turning to government authorities when their children are in danger.
"Employers know the chances of being caught are slim, and the fines are
almost laughable," said Norma Flores Lopez, who picked crops with her
migrant family as a teenager and now works with the Association of
Farmworker Opportunity Programs on a campaign combatting exploitation of
child labourers.
"It's been an uphill battle," she said. "We're dealing with children who
don't vote, and for the most part parents who don't vote. A lot of
politicians tend to overlook them."
Another former child farmworker, Maria Mandujano, is a relatively rare
success story who finished high school and is completing her sophomore
year at the University of Idaho.
The 19-year-old said she suffers recurring back pains stemming from long
hours picking zucchini for $6.75 an hour when she was an adolescent who
had pressed her parents to let her help earn sorely needed income for
the family.
"It was very tedious, very hard," she said in a telephone interview.
"Yes, children are capable of doing this work, because they're young,
but physically it can affect them in the long run."
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