China urges US government to take action to end child labor

China urges the U.S. government to take effective measures to eliminate the serious problem of child labor in the country, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian at a routine press conference on Wednesday.

This year is designated as the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labor by the United Nations General Assembly. Over the years, the International Labor Organization (ILO) has repeatedly expressed concern about the child labor problem in the U.S. and the severe work injuries arising therefrom.

"Children are the future of the world. To protect and promote children's rights is an important part of the human rights cause that countries in the world commit themselves to. As a self-proclaimed 'beacon of human rights' and the most developed country in the world, the United States is the single one in the world that has not ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), and has been keeping itself from the scrutinizing light of this 'beacon of human rights' when it comes to its severe child labor problem," Zhao said.

According to U.S. official statistics, in 2019, U.S. law enforcement officers found 858 cases of child labor in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, with a total of 544 minors employed in violation of Hazardous Occupation Orders (HOs). The statistics of some U.S. industry associations are far more alarming than the official figure. According to reports of relevant organizations, there are approximately 500,000 child farmworkers in the U.S. Many of these children start working as young as 8 years old, and 72-hour-work weeks (more than 10 hours per day) are not uncommon. Children are three times more susceptible to the pesticides' carcinogenic effects than adults are. Agriculture was responsible for more than half of child occupational deaths. Between 2003 and 2016, 237 children died in farm-related work accidents, representing four times the number of deaths of any other sector.

The prevalence of child labor in the U.S. tobacco industry is particularly worrying. According to some human rights organizations, tobacco farms in many U.S. states employ a large number of children to harvest and dry tobacco leaves, and even operate heavy machinery. Working on tobacco farms can do great harm to children's physical and mental health, as many have reportedly experienced symptoms of nicotine poisoning including nausea and headache, and some have even suffered lung infection.

For years, the ILO Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations (CEACR) has been speaking out on the issue of child labor in the U.S. It has repeatedly expressed concern about the excessive fatal injuries to children working on farms in the U.S., and urged the U.S. government to step up supervision of the use of child labor in agriculture, and provide relevant statistics in details, In particular, the number of work-related injury cases and the investigation and handling of illegal use of child labor cases.

However, the U.S. government has turned a deaf ear to the concerns and suggestions of ILO, and has done precious little to solve the problem of child labor.

"On the occasion of the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labor, we hope that the international community will pay more attention to the child labor issue in the U.S., urge the U.S. government to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), take effective measures to eliminate the serious problem of child labor in the country, and earnestly implement the ILO Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labor," Zhao said.