Children pick beans, as well as pregnant women. However, pickers get paid an extremely low, piece-work wage. In Guatemala, for example, a worker is paid two cents for a pound of green beans. Needless to say, the daily necessities are not met. Three out of four Guatemalan children suffer from malnutrition in the coffee producing areas.
Health care is poor, or non-existent, and educational opportunities are the same.
If it's such a crappy job, why don't they leave, wait on tables, work in the capital as a data processor, I dunno . Well, it's very likely that these peasants would like to do something else, such as harvesting their own patch of maize, traditionally a highly important crop in Mayan culture. However, for many farmers, this freedom is outside the question. The dependence of the Guatemalan economy, the economies ofmany other Latin American countries, on the cash crop of coffee can be traced back to the Spanish colonial era where the invading powers introduced coffee in Latin America to support a growing demand in Europe. Large plantations, or fincas , sprung up on formerly native lands, and the new Spanish owners needed a large labour force to work their plantations.