Workforce Language Services

More than 400,000 children work on farms nationwide, making up about 20% of the U.S. farm workforce. The Association of Farmworker Opportunity Program wants to put a end the exploitation of migrant child workers. Their first stop: North Carolina.

The Children in the Fields campaign is working to build grassroots support in North Carolina and four other key states to combat the exploitation of U.S farm worker children.

“This state (North Carolina) has thousands of migrants in the fields and is an area with a lot of agricultural activity, where the problem of children working in dangerous conditions is very large and growing,” [regional coordinator Emily] Drakage told EFE Thursday.

Children are permitted to accompany their parents in the fields at the age of 12, and by the age of 14 can work hours that do not interfere with the school day.  No child under the age of 16 can perform any “dangerous” activities, as defined by the Department of Labor.

However, kids as young as 6-years-old have been found laboring in the fields for 12 hours a day, around plants “treated with pesticides, in extreme weather conditions and surrounded by machinery with sharp blades.”

In addition to the dangerous conditions, migrant worker children also face linguistic barriers due to missing school and educational growth.

Read more about this issue in the Latin American Herald Tribune article.