Child labour

A federal investigation into Guatemalan children working in the U.S. in violation of child labor laws has expanded to include meatpacking and produce firms that have allegedly hired underage migrants in at least 11 states, two senior U.S. officials told NBC News. Investigators from the Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Investigations and the Justice Department, as well as White House officials, are participating in the expanded inquiry, the officials said. The meatpacking and produce companies under scrutiny for possible child labor violations operate across the country in locations from Virginia to Colorado, the sources said. The investigators would not name any of the companies currently under investigation. Penalties could range from civil fines to criminal charges, the officials said, but no charges have been filed. “I think it’s a huge positive step forward,” said Wendy Young, president of Kids in Need of Defense, a legal aid organization for migrant children. “Now we need to make sure that the federal government really invests resources to follow through and sustain this effort. But I’m heartened by the fact that we’re now seeing multiple agencies work together and really take this issue seriously,” Young said. Spokespeople for Homeland Security Investigations, the White House and the Labor Department declined to comment. The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment. When a Labor Department investigation found Wisconsin-based Pack...

Child labor violations have been on the rise since 2015 after declining for years, according to data from the U.S. Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division. The total number of violations is much lower than it was two decades ago, but experts are still troubled. In 2015 — the low point in the data — the Wage and Hour Division found 1,012 minors employed in violation of child labor laws, with an average of 1.9 per case. In 2022, that number more than tripled to 3,876, averaging 4.6 per case. Loading... "We're doing more outreach and education," which helps people recognize violations, says Jessica Looman, principal deputy administrator of the Wage and Hour Division. "We also are doing more investigations." The division is finding more minors per case, and it's not clear why. Investigators are also finding more minors working in hazardous occupations, where children could get seriously injured. "Those numbers are creeping back up again, and that's a real concern to us," says Looman. It's important to hold employers accountable, "but this is also an issue that is community based. It is school based. It is parent based," Looman says. "All of us together as a society and an economy have to come together and make sure that we are protecting our kids. And when we look at the increase in child labor violations, we have to ask ourselves the question, how are we letting this happen in 2022, 2023?" What does child labor look like in the U.S.? Child labor Part of the division's focus...

• Afrikaans • العربية • Asturianu • বাংলা • Català • Čeština • Dansk • Deutsch • Eesti • Ελληνικά • Español • Esperanto • Euskara • فارسی • Français • Galego • ગુજરાતી • 한국어 • Հայերեն • हिन्दी • Bahasa Indonesia • Interlingua • Íslenska • Italiano • עברית • ಕನ್ನಡ • Kiswahili • Kurdî • Latina • Македонски • മലയാളം • Nederlands • नेपाली • 日本語 • Norsk bokmål • Norsk nynorsk • Occitan • ਪੰਜਾਬੀ • پښتو • Polski • Português • Română • Русский • Shqip • සිංහල • Simple English • Slovenčina • کوردی • Српски / srpski • Suomi • Svenska • தமிழ் • తెలుగు • Türkçe • Українська • اردو • Tiếng Việt • Walon • 吴语 • 中文 Child labour refers to the Child labour has existed to varying extents throughout In the world's poorest countries, around one in four children are engaged in child labour, the highest number of whom (29 percent) live in Globally the incidence of child labour decreased from 25% to 10% between 1960 and 2003, according to the History Child labour in preindustrial societies Child labour forms an The work of children was important in pre-industrial societies, as children needed to provide their labour for their survival and that of their group. • With the onset of the The Child labour played an important role in the Industrial Revolution from its outset, often brought about by economic hardship. The children of the poor were expected to contribute to their family income. Child wages were often low, the wages were as little as 10–20% of an adult male's wage. [ bettersourceneeded] Th...

Farm workers fill up bins in the back of a truck with zucchini on a farm in Florida City, Florida, in 2020. Joe Raedle/Getty Images Amid discoveries of 13-year-olds cleaning saws in meatpacking plants and 10-year-olds working in the kitchen at a McDonald's, the Biden administration has vowed to crack down on child labor violations in the U.S. But largely absent from those discussions are the estimated hundreds of thousands of children who are legally working in equally hazardous conditions on farms. House Democrats are seeking to bring those children into the conversation, with a bill introduced Monday that would raise the minimum age for children working in farms from 12 to 14, a change sponsors say would rectify a decades-old double standard. A different standard for children working in agriculture Under federal labor law, children must be 14 to take on all but a tiny handful of jobs, and there are limits to the hours they can work. But due to a carveout with origins in the Jim Crow South, children can be hired to work on farms starting at age 12, for any number of hours as long as they don't miss school. And while children are generally prohibited from doing hazardous work in other sectors, there's an exception for agriculture. At 16, children can operate heavy machinery and perform tasks at any height while working on a farm without any protections against falling, unlike in other industries. The Children's Act for Responsible Employment and Farm Safety would do away w...

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Traveling the country with his camera, The social and political implications of The patina of Hine’s black-and-white photographs suggests a bygone era—an embarrassing past that many Americans might imagine they’ve left behind. But with “An investigator with a camera” A sociologist by training, Hine began making photographs in 1903 while working as a teacher at the progressive Ethical Culture School in New York City. Hine’s photograph of three young fish cutters working at the Seacoast Canning Company in Eastport, Maine National Child Labor Committee Collection / Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division Between 1903 and 1908, he and his students photographed migrants at Ellis Island. Hine believed that the future of the U.S. rested in its identity as an immigrant nation—a position that contrasted with Based on this work, the By the late 19th century, several states had passed laws In his work for the National Child Labor Committee, Hine journeyed to farms and mills in the industrializing South and the streets and factories of the Northeast. He Lewis Wickes Hine, Trapper Boy, Turkey Knob Mine, MacDonald, West Virginia, 1908 The Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (P148), under CC BY-SA 4.0 To gain entry into factories and other facilities, Hine sometimes disguised himself as a Bible, postcard or insurance salesman. Other times, he’d wait outside to catch workers arriving for or departing from their shifts. Along with photographic rec...

You may think that child labor was abolished a century ago, at least in the United States. That was never quite true. The Fair Labor Standards Act, passed during the New Deal, outlawed “oppressive child labor” but exempted agricultural work from many of its restrictions, which, in the decades since, has left hundreds of thousands of children in the fields. In every industry, enforcement of the law has been uneven. States have always been free to strengthen protections, which some did, but challenges to the federal standards have been rare. The Reagan Administration, in its pro-business zeal, proposed lowering the standards, but abandoned the idea under fire from teachers, parents, unions, and Democratic lawmakers armed with Dickens references. Today, however, child labor in America is on the rise. The number of minors employed in violation of child-labor laws last year was up thirty-seven per cent from the previous year, according to the Department of Labor, and up two hundred and eighty-three per cent from 2015. (These are violations caught by government, so they likely represent a fraction of the real number.) This surge is being propelled by an unhappy confluence of employers desperate to fill jobs, including dangerous jobs, at the lowest possible cost; a vast wave of “unaccompanied minors” entering the country; more than a little human trafficking; and a growing number of state legislatures that are weakening child-labor laws in deference to industry groups and, someti...