Child farmworkers are prevalent. An organization devoted to protecting children’s rights disclosed that as many as 400,000 children are estimated to work on U.S. farms. Davis Strauss, executive director of the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs, noted that for decades, children, some as young as eight years old, have labored in the fields using sharp tools and toiling amongst dangerous pesticides. The association’s president Ernie Flores said children account for about 20 percent of all farm fatalities in the United States (Spain’s Uprising newspaper, October 14, 2009). A labor standards act permits a child beyond 13 to work in heat for long time in a farm, but does not permit that child to work in an air-conditioned office and even forbids them working in a fast food restaurant.

It made me chuckle.

I am curious, however, who this document is meant for. If the audience is domestic Chinese, then this is written in the wrong language. If it is written for Americans or other members of the transnational elite – well then statements like that should make them chuckle too.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/mar/28/us-uk-special-relationship-over