The national Institute for Occupation Safety and Health estimates that 70 teenagers are killed each year in work-related accidents and that more than 200,000 working teenagers are injured annually. In 1990 a three-day 'sting' operation by the Department of Labor discovered more than 11,000 children working illegally. The involvement of migrant children in US agriculture is routine. In the 1980s the United Farm Workers union estimated that 800,000 under-aged children worked harvesting crops. In 1990 a survey of Mexican American children working on farms in New York state showed a third of them had been sprayed with pesticides.
Most countries have laws against child labour.
The International Labour Organization's Minimum Age Convention sets a basic minimum age for employment of 15 years while allowing light work at 13 and prohibiting hazardous work until 18. But only 49 countries have ratified the Convention and none of these are countries considered to have the highest incidence of hazardous child labour. Most child workers in the South are to be found in Asia. While the most extreme examples of exploitative child labour tend to come from Asia, an African child is more likely to work. Official figures always tend to underestimate the numbers of children working.