Summer Homework: Plow the Field
Monday, June 20, 2011 at 11:31AM by Chris Liu-Beers The American Prospect recently featured an article about how a legal loophole allows young children to work in agriculture:
Farmworkers are frequently exposed to dangerous pesticides, heavy machinery, and sharp tools, and children are much more vulnerable to the bad effects of these than their older colleagues, according to Levy Schroeder, director of health and safety programs at the AFOP. Deaths from heat exposure and tractor rollovers, and lifelong repetitive strain injuries from stooping for hours on end are just some of the risks that young children face in farm work. “They are not little adults; their bodies have not yet developed,” Schroeder says. Children’s young immune systems are also particularly susceptible to pesticide exposure, which has been associated with cancer and respiratory and reproductive problems over the long term.
Maria Mandujano, now 20, started working on farms in her home state of Idaho at age 11. “It was just something you had to do to put food on the table,” she says, but now she laments the experience. “I wish my parents would have said no, or somebody would have been there to say no,” she adds. Mandujano is now studying in college and is trying to lure her younger brother away from the fields. “I always try to explain to him how he can benefit from not working the fields right now, what he could do in exchange,” she says. “For example, learning from my own mistakes and not growing up as quickly as I did.”
One thing that frequently gets sacrificed is education—Mandujano is a rarity for making it to college. In fact, young farmworkers are four times more likely to drop out of school than their peers, according to government estimates. López moved around the country for work during her summers and often found herself months behind in school when she returned to her home in Texas in late October. Despite the odds, she graduated with a bachelor’s in communications and now works at AFOP to advocate for those less fortunate. “More than half of these kids don’t complete high school,” she says, “and we continue to allow that to happen.”
Here in North Carolina, the Farmworker Advocacy Network is committed to ending exploitative child labor – but we need your help. You can start by:
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