Health and Safety Workers

Project Leaf

lbetanzo — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:35:15 +0000

While children may not necessarily be exposed to pesticides by working or playing in the fields, they frequently come into contact with significant amounts of these substances through residues unwittingly brought home by their parents from residues left on their bodies and clothing.

Children are also exposed to pesticides in farmworker housing, from sources such as drift, proximity to fields or in-home use of pesticides. Recent studies have indicated that these take-home/in-home exposures put children at risk for acute and chronic illness, and signal the need for greater awareness among farmworker families.

Martin Sheen Stands Up For Farm Workers

lbetanzo — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:25:37 +0000

lbetanzo — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:22:53 +0000

Take Our Poll

CHILDREN IN THE FIELDS

lbetanzo — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:17:23 +0000

AFOP’s Children in the Fields campaign strives to improve the quality of life of migrant and seasonal farmworker children by advocating for enhanced educational opportunities and the elimination of discriminatory federal child labor laws in agriculture.
Since 1997, AFOP has advocated for stronger federal child labor laws through its Children in the Fields campaign. It has partnered with the Child Labor Coalition, the National Consumers League, and other concerned parties to publicize the plight of this hidden population. It has used its extensive network of member agencies to inform the public and advocate for federal legislation that would strengthen the child labor safeguards in agriculture so that they are just as protective as those in all other industries. AFOP has conducted field investigations that have uncovered children as young as nine working in the fields. Most Americans still envision farms as safe, nurturing places. The Children in the Fields campaign has shown that the myth of the agrarian idyll does not extend to the children of America’s migrant and seasonal farmworkers.