An
estimated 500,000 children are working on tobacco fields in the United States,
most of them in extremely hazardous conditions. World Day Against Child Labor,
on June 12, aims to highlight the plight of the children.
Deutsche Welle, 13 June 2015
Celia Ortiz
was only 11 when she started working on tobacco fields in North Carolina. When
most children were sleeping late, watching television, or riding their bicycle
during spring breaks, Celia would wake up each morning at five to harvest crops
for 10 or 12 hours in extremely dangerous conditions. She worked on tobacco
fields for seven years.
"When
you're a child, you're out there because you need the money," she said.
"It's not like you're looking for fun."
Celia is
taking part in the World Day Against Child Labor on June 12 with members of the
Child Labor Coalition - a group of nonprofit organizations including Human
Rights Watch. The coalition gathered in Washington DC to raise awareness and
discuss problems and possible solutions for the country's child labor issue.
There are
four states that produce 90 percent of the country's tobacco - North Carolina,
Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee - and in these states children as young as 7
are working 50-60 hours per week harvesting and cultivating tobacco plants, in
most cases with severe repercussions. Human Rights Watch estimates nearly half
a million such children work on these fields.
"This
is perfectly legal in the US," says Zama Coursen-Neff, executive director
of the children's rights division at Human Rights Watch. "[It is legal]
because of a loophole in child labor laws that makes it legal for children to
work in agriculture at far younger ages, for far longer hours, under far more
hazardous environments."
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| June 12 is World Day Against Child Labor |
Nicotine
exposure
Coursen-Neff
took part in an initiative that spoke to over 140 child workers across the
United States. "Three-quarters of them reported frequently feeling dizzy,
nauseous, or vomiting in the fields," she said.
Two-thirds
of them displayed symptoms of Green Tobacco Sickness, or nicotine poisoning.
This occurs when workers are exposed to wet tobacco plants, through either rain
or morning dew, and contact with the plants causes their skin to absorb the
toxins. This is extremely hazardous to the younger workers. "Nicotine
exposure during adolescence leads to mood disorders, attention deficit, lasting
cognitive disorders," Coursen-Neff explained.
For Celia,
this was all too familiar. She recalls feeling the symptoms of nicotine
exposure. "You get dizzy and nauseous," she said. "The world is
closing in on you and you feel like you're going to die. I can't even explain
it properly."
Celia says
she only learned of the hazards of her work last year. "From all the years
that I worked, they never informed us of the dangers and hazards. When you're
young you don't know what to do."
Child
workers were not given proper protection against the nicotine exposure or
frequent usage of pesticide sprays on the crops, which would also fall on their
clothes and skin. They were left to find their own ways of protection.
"We
would put on garbage bags and put holes in them for our head and feet,"
Celia said. "And we didn't have rain boots so we put grocery bags over our
shoes."
Humiliation
and danger
The
conditions grew worse as Celia worked over the years. Eventually the farmers
stopped providing water to the workers. The children brought their own to stay
hydrated, but that led to more complications. "Going to the restroom is
another problem. You would have to go to the other side of the field just so
nobody could see, just to get some privacy. It's dangerous, especially being a
young lady." These lengthy trips for solitude were often met with harsh
demands for faster and harder work.
"I
knew it was wrong that we didn't get water," she remembered. "I knew
it was wrong we didn't get restrooms. I knew it was wrong they sprayed
pesticide while we were working." Even then, Celia said, there was too
much fear to say anything.
"It
was hard for me to speak up and say, 'Hey I'm sick please take me off the row.'
Because you want to prove to adults that you can work like they can, and you
want to be paid. That's the fear factor about speaking up."
The
environment also presented psychological stresses of insecurities and
self-doubt. "In one instance I was humiliated and belittled because I
didn't do the job as well [as an adult]. I started to think, 'If I can't do
this job what makes me think I can do an office job?'"
But even
that office job is usually a pipe dream. "Unfortunately," explained
Coursen-Neff, "the interference of their education and the negative health
effects of working in agriculture in the United States perpetuates a cycle of
poverty that ultimately leave children often without any other options except
to continue working in the fields."
She says
it's time to break the cycle. "This is a solvable problem. Children are
too young to buy cigarettes, and yet right now children are working in fields
in the United States being poisoned by nicotine in the fields, and these bills
that are in Congress right now can do something about that."
The Child
Labor Coalition is hoping to lobby for changes to the law, amendments to the
Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 that would prohibit child employment in
tobacco-related agriculture by "deeming such employment as oppressive
child labor."
As for
Celia, she will return to work. Not in the fields, though - she did get that
office job, in a bank. The hope is to turn her exception to the rule into a
more common occurrence.
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