The United States Department of Labor warned this Thursday that There are children in Mexico involved in the harvesting of products which are then used to make drugs.
“Many children are also involved in harvesting crops that are used for production of poppy substances for opium and heroin “in Afghanistan and Mexico,” warned the report ‘2024: List of goods produced by child labor or forced labor’ and ‘2023: Findings of the worst forms of child labor’.
The report also stated that Between 20 and 40 percent of children work in industries such as construction in Mexico, Colombia, South Sudan and Sri Lanka.
In addition, the document denounced that there are child exploitation in the production of pornography, clothing, leather goods, accessories, livestock, and in the harvesting of tobacco, coffee, beans, chili peppers, cucumbers, eggplants, melons, onions, and tomatoes.
He also noted that There is non-child “forced labor” in chili and tomato crops.
The report follows the announcement last October that some 3.7 million Mexicans, aged 5 to 17, worked in 2022, 13.1 percent of the total child population and 1.7 percent more than in 2019, according to Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi).
The autonomous institute detailed that Two million of them are in dangerous jobswhich includes 1.1 million in sectors such as agriculture, construction, mining, chemical industry, among others.
The Federal Labor Law (LFT) prohibits any type of work for those who have not turned 15 years old, and the Treaty between Mexico, the United States and Canada (T-MEC) has been added to Mexican laws, since the three nations involved in the agreement have committed to abolish it.
Despite this panorama, Washington mentioned Mexico along with Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Moldova as the six countries “with significant progress” to eradicate the child labor, that is, with greater progress.
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The Department of Labor acknowledged that Mexico, in compliance with the T-MEC, prohibited imports of products made with forced child labor.
He also highlighted the Benito Juárez scholarships, created by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, because they have benefited 10 million students.