STPS: In Mexico, Hundreds of Thousands of Minors Work in the Fields Patricia Munoz Rios - La Jornada
go to original September 6, 2013

Thousands of children work illegally in the fields of Mexico, providing produce for dinner tables across the globe. The government has brought in new labor laws to help crack down on child labor, but authorities are finding it hard to prosecute offenders, who are mostly poor farmers. Al Jazeera's Rachel Levin reports from Sinaloa, Mexico. (AlJazeeraEnglish)

The numbers regarding rural child labor are "troubling", since currently more than 900 thousand minors between the ages of five and 17 work in this area, representing a third of all of the children in this age range who work in the nation.

The head of the Secretariat of Labor and Social Security (STPS), Alfonso Navarrete Prida, said this while speaking before the extraordinary Congress of the National Farmers Confederation (CNC), and argued there that it has been shown that the children's work does not solve the problems of either poverty or family hardships.

"Therefore, when we permit 10 percent of our children and teenagers in Mexico to work, we are cutting their future short and consequently our own society's, as well," he said after stating that more than 3 million carry out a salaried or nonsalaried job.

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

Translated by Tristan Foy

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