13-year-old kids employed at night in slaughterhouses, cleaning meat-cutting machines with chemicals… This is happening in the United States and it is the Ministry of Labor that is sounding the alarm. Checks have revealed that no less than 102 minors aged 13 to 17 were employed by a cleaning and food hygiene company, Packers Sanitation Services, in thirteen slaughterhouses in eight different states. It took three of these young people seriously injured while working for this company for the State to stick its nose in these illegal practices. Friday, February 17, the judgment fell: the cleaning company was ordered to pay 1.5 million dollars in fines. Because this type of dangerous job is prohibited under the age of 18 by the Fair Labor Standards Act (“law on fair labor standards”).
However, this is not an isolated case. Over the past year, several scandals have made the headlines in American newspapers. In August, the Department of Labor filed a lawsuit against a supplier to the automaker Hyundai in Alabama for employing children as young as 12 years old. These repeated violations of children’s rights are in fact the symptom of a spreading evil. Several Republican states in the Midwest seek to facilitate the work of minors: by extending the number of authorized hours, by lowering the legal age, and by allowing their recruitment in m
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