Appendix: The State of Child Farmworker Law in the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico The following appendix is a survey of the laws of the 50 states, DC, and Puerto Rico on the following questions: 1. What is the minimum age to perform agricultural work? 2. What is the maximum number of hours a child can work daily? 3. What is the maximum number of days per week that a child may work? 4. Is night work prohibited for certain hours and certain ages? 5. What are the fines for violating child labor laws? 6. What are the criminal penalties for violating child labor laws? The information provided in this report does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice. The appendix includes citations along with hyperlinks to where in the law these provisions reside, to show how simple it would be to change these laws to protect farmworker children. A motivated advocate in a state could encourage a lawmaker to simply change the minimum age to perform agricultural work. Or take a law that protects all children except child farmworkers and remove the exception or limit the exception to family farms. The appendix also includes examples of farm-related deaths. Open-source research of news articles, government agency investigations, and other publicly available reports identified at least one child in 49 states who was killed in a farm-related accident since 2000. Children’s ages ranged from 2 years old to 17 years old. Deaths caused by tractors and ATVs are included as farm related, because although they are driven for various purposes, they are commonly used in farm work, and experts explain that they represent a high risk of death and serious injury to farmworker youth. These are provided as examples and do not include all child farm-related deaths over this period, which happen once every three days nationwide.
Child Farmworkers
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