In the United States, federal law allows 12-year-old children to work seven days a week outside of school hours in the agricultural industry. Part-time child workers can be even younger. These children are disproportionately children of color. Before COVID, more than half of the work-related deaths of children in the United States were related to agricultural work. As schools close due to COVID, more children of agricultural workers find themselves in the fields.
Lawyers for Racial Justice has partnered with the Child Labor Coalition to research state laws around agricultural labor to investigate this crisis. With the help of 15 law firms and in-house legal teams, we were able to complete the initial research (a 50-state research project answering a series of 22 questions). The goal of this research is to identify ways to better protect these children and give them additional opportunities outside of the fields.
Now, in the second phase of this project, we seek pro bono assistance reviewing the initial research findings, updating, and synthesizing the responses to each of the 22 initial research questions that were answered in phase one. Each participating attorney will be asked to review the responses to a single research question for all 50 states, updating as needed to ensure that findings are reported accurately, consistently, and with quality citations.
We estimate that each assignment will take approximately 25-30 hours to complete. Detailed instructions will be provided to participating attorneys.We request that the projects be completed by June 25.
To express interest in this project, please fill out the form on this page and select “Agricultural Child Labor Project (Phase 2)” in the Projects field.