Tucker explains that juvenile farmworkers are routinely exposed to dangerous pesticides, suffering rashes, headaches, nausea and vomiting, and adds that long-term consequences of pesticide poisoning include cancer, brain damage and learning and memory problems. Prospects for a better future are further jeopardized because only 55 percent graduate from high school. Ironically, the violation of the basic rights of these children is supported by the Fair Labor Standards Act which states that children working on farms may be employed from the age of 12, and provides no limitation on the number of hours a child can work. In all other occupations, by contrast, children under the age of 16 are limited to three hours of work per day when school is in session. In this way, it deprived many children of their only hope for protection and contributed to the general lack of enforcement characterizing the employment of youth on farms.
Racial discrimination is, once again, tied to poverty.
HRW points out that the precarious situation of children is often prompted by the widespread exploitation of their parents. The maltreatment of children on American farms is part of globalization, in the sense that First World countries no longer rely solely on the Third World for cheap labor. Rather, large segments of society within the U.S. are subjected to working conditions not unlike those in the developing countries. Whereas many of those abused are migrant workers, it is becoming common to exploit citizens as well. As the advocates of the global market continue to extol the benefits of economic growth, the gap between the rich and the poor widens, and our own backyard continues to be an arena of abuse and subjugation.