Friday, October 30, ABC published an investigative report on child labor in the blueberry fields of Michigan, Arkansas, New Jersey, and North Carolina; their efforts not only raised awareness about agricultural practices here in the U.S. but actually compelled Walmart and Kroger supermarkets to sever business with their primary blueberry vendor, Adkin Blue Ribbon Packing Company.
Four of ABC’s 2009 Carnegie fellows spent the summer months talking to the children that worked picking the berries bucket by bucket. They were shocked and surprised to find children as young as five out in the fields, sometimes from morning til night. The children worked with their families, who travel to the fields for harvest, hiring themselves out as migrant workers. Local social and healthcare professionals are concerned about the children’s exposure to the dangers of agricultural work: intense heat, chemical sprays, frustration and depression from long hours at a meager wage, etc.
To protect children from work place dangers and unhealthy exploitation, legislation long ago banned child labor under the age of twelve. ABC ran its story of the “blueberry children” as a human interest exposé on child exploitation here in the America’s heartland. But throughout the past week since its release, online readers have responded with comments and questions that exposed a much more complicated situation than even ABC seemed to realize.
These migrant families are fighting to stay at or just above the poverty line and therefore rely on the wage the children earn. This reality totally eclipses the option of daycare. In their comments on the article, several blueberry farmers explained that their own choice regarding the children of these families only amounted to two options: let them work alongside their parents or let them sit in their parents’ car playing video games. Is sitting in a car for hours healthier than working in blueberry fields?
Scores of commentators referenced their own upbringing as defense. The importance of work ethic, the joy of drawing a wage, the responsibility and accomplishment of a particular skill, etc.—all learned on blueberry farms, starting as young as six years old. Others suggested similarity between household chores such as working in the garden, doing laundry, cleaning, cooking and summer employment on a farm. Family responsibility can be expressed in your own home, but when you leave the home, the government intervenes with legislation?
Several farmers also reminded readers that blueberry harvest was a finite time span—two summer months—which did not interfere with the children’s educational opportunities. Taken all together, commentators reacted against ABC’s claims that work in blueberry fields in any way resembled the practices during the Industrial Revolution that sparked the exploitation of child labor and inspired the legislation against it.
The complications introduced by poverty, healthcare, and education do not seem to add up to a clear-cut case of child exploitation. The children work with their families, contribute to their family’s financial solvency, and do not miss educational opportunities. But neither do those same complications obscure the fact that five year old children work long days in hot fields. The physical and psychological dangers they face are difficult even on adult terms. The “blueberry children” are a disturbing example of the conditions that lead to exploitation—conditions that will only escalate if they are not addressed.
There are multiple ways to access the problem: social resources for migrant families, child care for low-income families, strict monitoring of working conditions, legislation that protects children and the wage they earn, and more. What are your thoughts on the families, farmers, healthcare providers, educators, and children involved? Have you encountered child labor or exploitation in your daily life? How did you see these issues addressed and what would you change about that plan of action? Do you have your own plan of action?
-- Author: Jessica Reis
-- Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/young-children-working-blueberry-fields-walmart-severs-ties/story?id=8951044
-- Image Credit:
Blueberry Children, courtesy AFOP (Association of Farmworker Opportunity Program)
Graphic Design, Jessica Reis
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