Article
Bush to Press Free Trade in a Place Where Young Children Still Cut the Cane [Guatemala]
At some factories exporting to the United States, [children] sew and sort and chop, often in conditions so onerous they violate even Guatemala’s very loose labor laws...The [US] State Department acknowledged…that [in Guatemala] “child labor was a widespread and serious problem”…The National Labor Committee...interviewed child workers in the area. The group focused on Legumex, a factory that exports…fruits and vegetables to the United States, and in a report [‘Harvest of Shame’]…accuses it of violating a host of labor laws, including employing children, some as young as 13, for shifts longer than permitted…But at Legumex, executives…insisted that they were complying with labor laws [and]…did not employ children under 18 without parental permission...