Young people on tobacco farms

My apologies for being rather vague in the title and description of this argument. First of all, I would have to disagree with the comment in your first point. "The idea that by making child labor on tobacco farms illegal we"ll be saving lives is absurd, as without the money provided by working on the farm, those children would likely have no other alternative." I strongly disagree with this point in the fact that it is morally wrong that because a pay check is more important than health. Families receive benefits and food stamps given by the government. Your point of morals does not justify the low hourly wages, of $4.25, that children are receiving. Writing in the current American Journal of Industrial Medicine, Sara A. Quandt, PhD., said that 41 percent of tobacco farm workers reported having green tobacco sickness at least once during the summer. According to newswise.com, 6% ever received medical help. This sickness ordinarily include nausea, vomiting, and dizziness. Other frequently encountered symptoms include abdominal cramps, headache, breathing difficulty, pallor, increased sweating and salivation, chills and fluctuations in blood pressure or heart rate. Most workers attempt to treat themselves. "Only 9 percent sought medical treatment," she said, "and 7 percent lost work time." Many farm workers believe they will be fired and lose their income if they get sick or work too slowly. Green tobacco sickness is an environmental justice issue, part of the growing concern that poor, minority and medically under served populations bear a disproportionate share of environmental and occupational health risks. On humid days the average field worker may be exposed to and absorb as much as 54 mg of dissolved nicotine " the equivalent to more than 32 average cigarettes. How can we make cigarettes illegal and illegal to smoke in public, but allow children to work on tobacco farms who are getting the same consequences as if they are being exposed and smoking nicotine? The answer is we cannot. It is morally wrong that as keeping it legal, we are encouraging low wages and health risks. You need to question the morality of hard work, long hours, and little pay, in addition with the terrible conditions working on a tobacco farm. In addition, you also stated that the children have no alternative if it is what they need to do to survive. However, the range of working time is only 8-10 weeks. The agricultural hazardous occupations orders under the Fair Labor Standards Act that bar young workers from certain tasks have not been updated since they were promulgated in 1970. Times have changed and ways people can earn money has changed. Going back to your survival point, it is important to make notice that other dangerous jobs child labor could help would also make money. Every job available could make money. Prostitution, for example, could make money. Although it is not correlated with this topic of argumentation, the fact is making any type of job illegal would prevent families from receiving money. However, you are assuming that there are no other jobs available for children in order to survive. That is simply untrue, as tobacco being the only way to make money to survive, as it is a generalized statement of your opinion that there are not any other jobs children could perform in order to help out with the family than the tobacco farming. As I stated above, child labor on tobacco farms is immoral, and its disadvantages clearly out weigh the advantages. Lastly, communities and countries experiencing poverty, high unemployment, and economic reliance on tobacco growing are vulnerable to predatory tobacco industry behavior. The health risks of tobacco farming are beyond the scope of any study. Data on social disruption in tobacco farming have been obtained through newspaper stories, published and unpublished reports, scholarly literature, documentary films, and tobacco industry publications such as annual reports and websites. In all World Health Organization regions (Eastern Mediterranean, Africa, Europe, the Americas, South East Asia and Western Pacific) tobacco farming involves child labor and deforestation as well as tobacco industry behavior promoting disruption in social and environmental life in tobacco farming communities. Keeping child labor on tobacco farms would, thus, cause the opposite of which you stated. You said that it would not save lives and in a nut shell, would actually do worse to the child who is working to survive. However, as stated above, actually having child labor does not benefit the people, nor the environment. Its disadvantages are outweighed more than the advantages of child labor on tobacco farms. Additional websites: http://www.avvo.com... http://www.thenation.com...# http://www.thenation.com...# http://www.eclt.org...