In most of the United States, it is illegal for those under the age of 18 to purchase tobacco or tobacco products. With the primary chemical in tobacco — nicotine — carrying a higher rate of addiction than alcohol, the push to slow the flow of new tobacco addicts has grown to be a matter of urgent national attention. However, children as young as 7 are regularly exposed to tobacco and nicotine poisoning in the U.S.
A report released Wednesday by Human Rights Watch states that children working on the nation’s tobacco farms are routinely subjected to nicotine dermal absorption, exposure to pesticides and other work-related hazards. The report, based on interviews with 141 tobacco workers aged 7 to 17 in Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, found that many of these children — predominantly the U.S.-born children of migrant workers — are subjected to unsafe working conditions.
Aiming to raise money for school or to help support their families, many of these children and teens work the tobacco fields during their summer breaks.
“Low wages, lack of protection, lack of the right for farmworkers to organize and bargain collectively perpetuate a real cycle of poverty among migrant farmworker families,” Jane Buchanan, co-author of “Tobacco’s Hidden Children” and associate director of Human Rights Watch’s Children Rights Division, told MintPress News. “This increases the likelihood that these families will be dependent on the labor of their children just to make ends meet.”
The cost of child farm labor
According to the report, the children and teens interviewed indicated that they have experienced nausea, vomiting, headaches and dizziness while working on the farms. Many suggested that they have worked long hours — up to 50 to 60 hours per week — without sufficient breaks, and they have also worked with inadequate protective gear and despite exposure to extreme summer heat without access to shade. Additionally, child workers are asked to use dangerous tools and machinery, manipulate and lift heavy loads, and climb into barn rafters with minimal fall protection.
Extensive child labor laws are in effect in the U.S. In almost all industries, a child cannot work without restrictions on hours worked and the nature of the jobs performed under the age of 16. In agriculture, however, children are allowed to work the fields without restrictions at the age of 12, as long as parental permission has been granted. On small farms, there are no age restrictions. With the U.S. Department of Labor recognizing farming as the country’s second-most dangerous occupation, behind mining, this represents a point of contention in the discussion of the nation’s commitment to protecting child laborers.
Of particular concern is the possibility of acute nicotine poisoning, or Green Tobacco Sickness, among these young workers. Nicotine, which constitutes between 0.6 to 3.0 percent of the dry weight of tobacco, is a toxic and powerful alkaloid. In small doses, it can act simultaneously as both a stimulant and a relaxant, but it can be fatal in higher doses in excess of 100 milligrams.
According to the American Heart Association, nicotine is among the most addictive known chemicals. Upon ingestion, nicotine triggers a release of glucose and adrenaline, causing the body’s metabolism to increase. At the same time, nicotine enters the brain, triggering the release of a large cluster of neurological chemical messengers — including serotonin, dopamine and beta-endorphin. While this may offer a temporary boost in internal calmness, concentration and awareness, it is also manipulating brain chemistry — something that may cause permanent mutations in a developing child.
Additionally, nicotine raises a person’s blood pressure and heart rate. While nicotine is not considered a traditional carcinogen, prolonged exposure to nicotine can cause heart failure and increase the risk of cancer. Nicotine is on the California Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment list of chemicals known to cause developmental toxicity.
When nicotine is absorbed through the skin, or dermally, it immediately enters the bloodstream. The chemical pools on the surface of wet tobacco leaves, and those who touch the leaves or whose clothes absorb the contaminated dew or rain that clings on the leaves are exposed to absorption of the chemical.
While the dissolved levels of nicotine are low in these conditions, a young child or someone unacquainted to nicotine could experience symptoms of acute nicotine poisoning, such as nausea, vomiting, headaches, dizziness, severe weakness, fluctuations in blood pressure and heart rate, abdominal cramping, chills, difficulty breathing and increased sweating.
The symptoms last only one or two days, but for the young fieldhands working long hours at high temperatures, the compounded effect could be potentially fatal. Additionally, seasonal and migrant workers are disproportionately affected, but there is no definitive data on how acute nicotine poisoning affects developing bodies.
Defending child labor
The tobacco industry maintains, however, that all safety precautions are taken. In a press release published Thursday, the Tobacco Growers Association of North Carolina argues that Human Rights Watch’s reporting may be flawed.
“It is widely understood that agriculture can be a labor intensive vocation and is known to embody long hours of work needs during peak periods given its often perishable condition of certain crops being harvested,” the press release stated, adding, “These conditions are also well understood by any person who chooses to become engaged in farming either as an owner/operator or employee of a farm.”
“Most farmers go beyond what is required of them in terms of labor compliance …,” it continued. “The fact that [Human Rights Watch] points to 141 incidents of children working in a farm environment should be considered as isolated and rare occurrences in the United States and most certainly in North Carolina. The findings in this report should be viewed in this country as the exception rather than the norm.”
“[The United States’ Department of Labor] only reported one incident of child labor in 2012 in NC,” the grower’s association added. There are no reports available estimating the number of undocumented workers working in agriculture in the U.S. or the total number of children currently employed in agricultural work.
David Kowal, president of Kowal Communications of Northboro, Mass., worked in a tobacco field as a teenager.
“I got up at 4:30 a.m. to take a bus from my blue-collar home to the tobacco farm, which was about 45 minutes away,” Kowal told MintPress. “I spent the day working under nets where it was about 110 degrees and by the end of the day, my hands were covered with tar. At the end of the week, my pay would add up to maybe $125.
“So what do I think about it? It was the best training for the work world of any job I had. It taught me to work hard and do my job.”
Child labor and the law
While there are questions about the morality of using child labor in agriculture — and in tobacco cultivation, in particular — for the most part, the farmers are acting in accordance with the law.
In 2012, facing election year pressures, the White House abandoned new Labor Department rules that would prevent minors from performing specific agricultural tasks that present too great a risk to children. These rules would have banned children from operating heavy equipment, handling tobacco, working in grain silos and carrying out other potentially life-threatening tasks. While the proposed rules would have only applied to children formally employed and on the payroll of non-family farms, Republicans and farm advocates criticized the rules as being needlessly unfair to farm families.
While there needs to be a clear statement of what is and is not safe for a child to do as work, there must also be strengthened protection of migrant workers’ and farmworkers’ rights and protections. As cited by Human Rights Watch, federal data on fatal occupational injuries show that two-thirds of all occupational injuries to children under the age of 18 happened on a farm and that 1,800 nonfatal injuries to minors occurred while the minor was doing farmwork.
“Tobacco companies shouldn’t benefit from hazardous child labor,” said Margaret Wurth, co-author of the Human Rights Watch report. “They have a responsibility to adopt clear, comprehensive policies that get children out of dangerous work on tobacco farms, and make sure the farms follow the rules.”
Read the full report below