The scandal of child labour in US farming

The false representation of immigrants 'stealing' farm jobs paints out the reality that children are being exploited to do the work
Earlier in the month, Human Rights Watch (HRW) announced the beginning of its campaign to end child labour in US agriculture. The campaign, among other things, calls for the "same age and hour requirements to children working in agriculture that already apply to all other working children" and for the government to "strengthen provisions regarding children's exposure to pesticides".


HRW's campaign begins just as anti-immigrant action in the US has heated up. Arizona recently passed the draconian SB 1070 legislation that requires local police to check the immigration status of anybody they have a "reasonable" suspicion of being undocumented. Arizona also outlawed ethnic studies classes shortly thereafter and is forbidding teachers with heavy accents from teaching English.


Most of these actions (and subsequent actions in other states) are being justified based on the state of labour in the US. That is, undocumented workers are "stealing" the jobs of citizens and as such, we need to come down particularly hard on any who might be undocumented. The Southern Poverty Law Centre (an organisation that monitors hate groups), has done an excellent job in documenting how labour gets centred in the immigration debate:



" ran an ad featuring a couple sitting at a kitchen table with a baby crying in the background. The husband tells his wife that he failed to get a job because 'they hired all foreign workers'. During a 2004 Texas congressional race, it ran television ads that included images of dark-skinned men loitering on street corners and running from police cars."

more http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2010/may/31/children-farm-jobs-immigrants