The government of Joe Biden announced this Monday a tightening of the fight against child labor in the country after detecting a dramatic increase of 70% in the cases detected five years ago.
Labor department officials announced a tightening of fines and other punishments for violation of laws that prevent the employment of children after several national media outlets published investigations into an explosion of this practice by companies and agencies, basically involving migrant minors. and in some cases to occupy painful positions.
In the last fiscal year alone, violations of this type were discovered in 835 companies in the United States. The food processing giant Hearthside Food Solutions, producer of the famous Cheetos, and some Hyundai suppliers are among the firms targeted after investigations by The New York Times and the Reuters agency.
A good part of the children and adolescents illegally employed in the superpower are minors who, with diverse origins although mostly Latin American, have arrived alone in the US through the Mexican border.
The Department of Labor, responsible for enforcing the ban on child labor, indicated that from now on it will not only prosecute factories and suppliers that directly employ children but also companies that depend on those suppliers to make their products or to provide their workers.
Among the brands that have profited from child labor, the Times cited in its report the supply chains of the automobile multinationals Ford and General Motors or the large local retailers Walmart and Target.
In the years 2021 and 2022 alone, more than 250,000 migrant children arrived in the US, always eager to obtain money to send to their families and in any case in need of income to pay the mafias that took them to the great nation where, In theory, all dreams come true.
