Teenagers young and older are definitely still working on fields here in the US[0], and also a good portion now work the processing facilities instead[1][2].
Whether it qualifies as 'an honest day's work' these days - or a cruel and punishing existence - I'll leave for you to decide.
It's a good point. I'm speaking of high school who are allowed to legally work in the state of Iowa. If a 16 year old willfully employing themself in an entry level job is considered exploitative child labor to you, I don't know what to say. One sad effect of the changes in labor in the state is that only citizens are beholden to labor laws, whereas those working under the table are not. So it's true there is child labor. The families and farm companies break the law because they still make more than they would back home, but it's less pay than what they are owed under the law, and the parents will lie about their child's age so they can begin working a few years earlier than they are allowed. It causes a cycle of poverty because the kids get used to the farm and they miss out on proper schooling.
In Iowa, it is legal for (US citizen) children as young as the age of 12 to work on farms, for an unlimited number of hours, so long as their parents grant permission and they do not miss school. They have so far been unsuccessful at legislating to raise the age limit from 12 to 14[0] as the Children's Act for Responsible Employment act has failed to pass, due to strong opposition from agricultural industry groups.
Many of these children are pressured into it by parents who have no other financial options, as described in the video I linked above.
I'm not in AG but I'd like to relax the current restrictions on juvenile labor. If 12 year olds can work on the family farm, why not let them legally work elsewhere?
As a 12 year old tech enthusiast I would have been thrilled to work a few hours a week for the Geek Squad. Or I could have worked at a small business entering invoices into Quickbooks, answering the phone, or running the till. I wouldn't even have minded pushing a broom at the pizza place nearby if it'd come with an employee discount!
As it was, all I could do was cut grass -- which is not safer, or more educational, or as profitable for me as some of those other jobs would have been.
It's working "perfectly" for the benefit of around a million heartless, horrible people based on the exploitation of a few million others.
> New York Times investigative journalist Hannah Dreier has interviewed more than 100 migrant children working in violation of child labor laws across 20 states.
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> "I talked to a 12-year-old girl in Alabama who was working overnight stamping auto parts. I talked to a 12-year-old in Florida who came to this country and the next day was put to work roofing houses," Dreier says.
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> Dreier met one 13-year-old boy in Michigan who worked 12-hour shifts at an egg farm, six days a week. "He told me that really he wanted to go to school, but he hadn't understood how expensive things were in this country," she says.
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> Dreier estimates that some 250,000 children have crossed into the U.S. without their parents in the last two years, and that the majority of them wind up working full-time jobs.
The will is there, but not the experience to know that the pay is ridiculous. People often think that kids and teenagers don't need to earn much, but they do the same job as a 40 year old would. However, the 40-year olds know that the pay is bad, that's why these positions are open to and taken by teenagers.
"Willfully" is such a toxic word to use here. Did you know that prostitutes also do that willfully? Do you think that's a fair assessment to make?
No, this is how farm work has been for the last several thousand years. Even with the poor state of the US education system, most of us understand that.