In Latin America those children aged between 10 and 14, who are working or in search of work, add up to over 7.5 million. The minimum age to work in Mexico is 16, but this law, like many that are supposed to protect children, is not respected. 160,000 Guatemalan children work in the manufacturing industry, trade and agriculture - making the clothes that many of us wear here today and picking the bananas and coffee that many of us had for breakfast. Three quarters of these Guatemalan children and adolescents work more than the 35 hours permitted by the Labour Code and three quarters of them receive half the payment that adults earn. Between 60 and 70,000 children participate in the Nicaraguan coffee harvest each year, despite the fact that Nicaraguan law prohibits child labour, only giving special work permits for children over the age of 14 for a few hours a week.
Coffee is Nicaragua's principal export crop.
Child workers are paid less than adults, and are not afforded any social benefits as the law requires. Many of the child coffee pickers are malnourished and functionally illiterate. The dangers of having young children work are obvious, but the legal risk of exploiting the child labour is slight. Two other child workers were seriously wounded. The children worked planting eucalyptus saplings.