With our correspondent in the United States, Thomas Harms
Four of the children involved were no older than 13.
In total, Department of Labor investigators have discovered 102 minors in meat processing plants in eight states over the past three years (Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, Tennessee and Texas).
Some worked night shifts for Packers Sanitation Services and went to school during the day. They cleaned back saws, head splitters and chest saws. Three children were burned using chemicals.
According to the US administration, this was in complete violation of laws relating to the protection of minors. Packers Sanitation Services, one of the nation’s largest food processing plant cleaning companies, has since terminated the children’s contracts and welcomed the settlement reached with the Labor Department.
In the United States, the minimum age is 14 and the law prohibits anyone under 18 from performing hazardous work. But the elected officials of several states want to relax the laws to allow more minors to work, to make up for the shortage of labour.
For example, a bill from Arkansas lawmakers wants to allow children to work without the written consent of their parents and without having to prove their age.
► To read also: In the United States, a thousand migrant children still separated from their parents
