The plight of more than 400,000 migrant children in the U.S. who work to help their families survive while sacrificing the birthright of childhood – play, stability, school – was the focus of a Diocesan Convention workshop led by filmmaker Susan MacLaury on Jan. 29.
According to MacLaury, many of the migrant children work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, in the hot sun without the protection of child labor laws, harvesting 25 percent of the fruits and vegetables that we buy and prepare and eat in our homes. They travel from April to November, moving with the harvest, in 45 states.
The children, many of whom are U.S. citizens born of both documented and undocumented parents, attend school wherever they are with no guarantee that the credits they earn will be accepted in the state that they call home. Many are several years behind where they should be, given their age, and nearly 2/3 drop out of school permanently.
Children working in agriculture are not protected by child labor laws, MacLaury explained. Under the Fair Labor Standard Act, the legal age to perform most farm work is 12 if a parent is present, but many children in the fields are younger than 10. The work is dangerous, and children account for 20 percent of farm accidents each year.
As part of the workshop MacLaury showed a trailer for The Harvest: The Story of the Children Who Work to Feed America, a documentary following five migrant children for a year. Now in post-production with an anticipated mid-2010 release date, The Harvest is a production of Shine Global (http://www.shineglobal.org), a nonprofit film-production company co-founded by MacLaury to give voice to some of the world's most at-risk children. Shine Global previously produced War/Dance, an Academy Award nominee and winner for best director of a documentary at the Sundance Film Festival, which tells the story of children drafted into war in Uganda.
MacLaury offered several suggestions for actions people could take to help:
- Show the trailer of The Harvest, and the film when it is released, in churches to heighten awareness of the issue.
- Offer the opportunity for confirmands and young parishioners to give input to an on-line game being created to help children learn about the issue.
- Write to Congress about the CARE Act (the Children's Act for Responsible Employment of 2007) to encourage the bill to leave committee and come up for a vote.
More information is available at http://www.shineglobal.org.
The Rev. Jane Tomaine is a former rector of St. Peter’s, Livingston.
