Monday, March 25, 2013

Farmworker Awareness Week Friday March 29


 Awareness Week March 24-31, 2013

 Another challenge facing migrant farmworkers is . .

CHILDREN WORKING IN THE FIELDS

FRIDAY MARCH 29

“An estimated 33,000 children incur farm-related injuries each year in the U.S... Over 100 of these children die as a result of their injuries.” (http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ae168).
Farmworkers were excluded from child labor laws in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. The FLSA sets 12 as the minimum age for farm work, not 16 as in other jobs. When we think of our children, we think of their innocence, their carefree nature and their potential to do amazing things. But for farmworker children, their innocence is torn from them by performing untrained, back-breaking work, receiving little to no heath care (90% have no health insurance). They are unable to answer the question as to why the other kids at school move upwards and onwards, while more than 50% of them are unable to even end the cycle of poverty in their own homes.
Click here to see two videos about children in the fields:
The Childhood We Deserve
Children Working in the Fields
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)