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III.  THE USE OF CHILD LABOR IN SUGARCANE CULTIVATION

At least 35 percent of El Salvador’s population works in sugar, a 1997 study estimated.²⁶  In every department visited by Human Rights Watch, we heard from children who began cutting and planting sugarcane between the ages of eight and thirteen.  In the communities we visited, nearly all of the boys age fourteen and older harvested sugarcane.  “Here people begin to work from the time they are small, so they will understand how to work,” said the father of four boys between the ages of thirteen and seventeen, all of whom cut sugarcane.²⁷

Harvesting is hazardous work.  It requires children to use machetes and other sharp knives to cut sugarcane and strip the leaves off the stalks.  “Many are injured,” said a teacher in a community north of San Salvador, telling Human Rights Watch that one of her students had cut himself on the foot with a machete and another had lost part of a finger.  “There are a lot of accidents for these children who are working,” she reported.²⁸  In fact, nearly every child we interviewed reported such injuries, showing us scars and cuts on their hands and feet to corroborate their accounts.  Planting cane, which does not require the use of sharp tools, does not carry the same risk of injury, but it does expose children to skin irritants when they handle green cane, leaving their hands raw and blistered.  In some cases, we heard that children fumigated sugarcane, strapping tanks to their back and applying herbicides with a hand-held nozzle.  Children perform all of these tasks for six to nine hours each day in the hot sun.

Medical care is often not available on the plantations, and children must frequently bear the cost of their medical treatment when they are injured.  When they do pay out of their own pockets, they are not reimbursed by their employers even though Salvadoran law makes employers responsible for medical expenses resulting from on-the-job injuries.

As with other forms of hazardous labor, children turn to sugarcane cultivation because of the economic pressures their families face.  Last modified in 1998, the minimum monthly wage for agricultural work is $74.06.  A rural family cannot meet its basic needs on a single wage earner’s salary.  According to the El Salvador-based National Foundation for Development, the minimum monthly wage would have to be raised by 30 percent to cover a rural family’s basic food needs alone.²⁹ “Really the people here are poor,” the father told Human Rights Watch, explaining that they had no other options.³⁰

The Role of Sugar in the Salvadoran Economy

Sugar was introduced to Central America in the sixteenth century, but it did not become an important crop in the region until after World War II.  Central America’s climate was more suited to the cultivation of coffee and bananas, and these crops were easier to integrate into the world market.³¹ 

The Central American countries sought to diversify their economies after World War II, and by 1975 sugar represented 10 percent of the region’s total exports.³²  In El Salvador, the production of sugar grew by 11 percent annually in the decade between 1961 and 1971.³³  During this period, the production of sugar exceeded the production of basic grains for the first time.³⁴

Sugar continued to grow in importance as an export crop in El Salvador in the 1980s.  Guatemala dominated the regional market during this period, in large part because of Soviet support of the Guatemalan crop.³⁵  Regional competition, the quotas the United States began to impose on sugar imports, and the Salvadoran civil war curbed the growth of the crop in El Salvador during the decade.³⁶  Sugar’s importance increased in the 1990s, particularly in the rural areas, becoming El Salvador’s second-largest export crop after coffee.³⁷

Most of the sugar plantations and production facilities were state-owned until 1995, when the government privatized most of them.³⁸  Many of these plantations are small-scale operations owned by local cooperatives, of which there are approximately five hundred in the country.³⁹  While these are by no means family farms—the plantations owned by the cooperatives are large enough to employ one or more teams of thirty to forty workers each—they are not the large-scale holdings that are common elsewhere in Central America.⁴⁰

The Salvadoran Sugar Association (Asociación Azucarera de El Salvador) represents most of El Salvador’s independent sugar producers and is currently responsible for approximately 62 percent of the national sugar production.⁴¹  Production has continued to increase, but prices in the world market are declining.⁴²  Raw sugar and molasses, rather than refined sugar, represent the bulk of the export materials.  As of 1996, only the Central Izalco and El Ángel plantations produced refined sugar.⁴³  In 2003, the major markets for Salvadoran sugar and molasses were Russia and Canada.⁴⁴

An Overview of Sugarcane Cultivation

Workers plant cane in November and December.  “You carry pieces of cane to a particular location and put them in the ground.  The work is from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.,” said Miguel G., an eighteen-year-old who began to work in the cane fields when he was fourteen.⁴⁵ 

Cane is cut from November to April, with some variation in different parts of the country.  The beginning of the harvest, or zafra, coincides with school vacations, but the harvest season extends well into the school year after students resume classes in January.  “I work the whole season [from November to April].  I go to school in the afternoon,” seventeen-year-old Pablo N., from La Libertad, told us.⁴⁶  Pedro M., a twelve-year-old who worked during the 2001-2002 harvest, described the work itself.  “We would go cutting the cane at the base, and then we cleaned off the leaves, and then we cut the cane again,” he said.  “Then we threw it to the side.  We threw it into a row.  The second day a machine passed by putting cane into the trucks.”⁴⁷

Workers usually cut one or more tareas, depending on their age and the amount of work available.  “The amount depends.  I received one tarea when I was fourteen.  It took me about three hours to cut.  Now, sometimes I get one tarea, sometimes two,” said Nelson R., now twenty-two years old.  He told Human Rights Watch that it now takes him between two and three hours to finish his work.  “It depends on how thick the cane is in the field.”⁴⁸  As with Carlos T., the eleven-year-old profiled in the summary, it is common for younger children to share one or more tareas with an adult or another child.

The work is done in teams (cuadrillas).  “There are like fifty or sixty in the same group,” said Miguel G., the eighteen-year-old, of the plantation where he worked in La Libertad.  When we asked him whether his group contained anybody he knew to be under the age of eighteen, he replied, “Yes, there are about ten.  They’re between twelve and fourteen years old.”⁴⁹

Elsewhere, we heard of cuadrillas of different sizes—most appeared to contain thirty to thirty-five workers—but all employed significant numbers of children.  “There are thirty people in the cuadrilla, including others who are under eighteen.  There are like ten kids [in the cuadrilla],” said fifteen-year-old Jimmy D.⁵⁰  Manny C., fourteen, described a similar arrangement.  He told us that the youngest workers in his cuadrilla were fourteen years old.  Of the thirty-three workers in the cuadrilla, he estimated that there were ten of that age.⁵¹   And Javier R., fifteen, said that of the thirty in his cuadrilla, “there are about five who are fifteen years old and some who are younger.”⁵²

Beginning Age of Work

Asked at what age children start working, Juan Luis B. pointed to his six-year-old brother, saying “If we wanted to take him, then we could.”  When a Human Rights Watch researcher asked him whether boys work in the fields at age six, he said, “Yes, a lot of kids go at this age.”  Now twenty, Juan Luis B. began working in the cane fields at age fifteen.⁵³  We heard similar comments in other interviews.  David F., fourteen, told us he began cutting cane when he was six years old.  “I began to help my father,” he said.  “He let me work on a little piece of a furrow.”  Now he shares a tarea with fourteen-year-old Manny C., who is also fourteen.⁵⁴  A teacher in a community north of San Salvador told Human Rights Watch, “I have children as young as eight who tell me that they are going to work in the zafra.”⁵⁵

In every department we visited in which sugarcane was cultivated, we heard numerous accounts of children who began to work between the ages of eight and thirteen.  “I was eight when I began.  I helped my brother then.  He was eighteen.  I’ve worked all of the harvests since,” said Edgar C., a twelve-year-old in the Department of San Salvador.⁵⁶  Similarly, Moises B., a seventeen-year-old who was also in the Department of San Salvador, told Human Rights Watch, “I was eight when I began to work.  At first, I helped my father.  When I was fourteen, I worked on my own.”⁵⁷  Manny C. and Eric R. began to cut sugarcane at age ten; Oscar P., Pablo N., Luis R., and Jaime L. were between the ages of eleven and thirteen when they started to cut cane.⁵⁸

If our interviews are any indication, most of the boys in sugar-producing areas are working during the harvest by the age of fourteen.  “I began when I was fourteen,” Nelson R. told Human Rights Watch.  “I’ve worked with the zafra every year since then.”⁵⁹  Miguel G., now eighteen, began cutting cane at the same age.  “I worked and went to school,” he told Human Rights Watch:

I was in school from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., and I worked from 5:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.  I worked with my brother.  Only one of us was listed [as a worker].  My brother was the one who was listed.  He was fifteen or sixteen when we started.  He’s a year older than me.  I worked with him for three years.  I was never listed.  I began to work alone when I turned eighteen.  Last year, I was still working with him.⁶⁰ 

“Around here, boys older than thirteen go working in the zafra,” an adult in one community told Human Rights Watch.⁶¹  We heard the same from a teacher who worked in a nearby community.  “The majority of boys work” during the sugarcane harvest, she said.  “Some girls too.”⁶²

Health Risks

Working with sugarcane requires children to use sharp tools, exposes their skin to irritants, particularly when they handle green cane, and in a limited number of cases requires them to apply herbicides.  As a result of the health risks to which child cane workers are exposed, the IPEC study found that they commonly experienced headaches (25.5 percent of those surveyed), back or neck problems (14.5 percent), and respiratory problems (14.5 percent).  For boys, cuts were the fourth most common health problem.  Girls experienced skin problems as often as respiratory problems; they were much less likely than boys to suffer cuts.  These differences are likely due to the fact that girls are more likely than boys to plant cane, which requires them to handle green cane, and less likely to work during the harvest, which requires the use of sharp tools.⁶³

Work with Dangerous Tools

Children and adults use machetes and other sharp knives, known as cumas and corvos, to cut sugarcane and strip the leaves off the stalks.  Injuries are common.  Rafael J., a sixteen-year-old in San Miguel, told us, “Sometimes when you are cutting, the knife jumps up off the cane when you hit it [and cuts your hand].  If the knife passes all the way through the cane, it can cut your foot.  I have seen this happen to men.”⁶⁴  Moises B., a seventeen-year-old in the Department of San Salvador, offered another explanation.  “The problem is when one works quickly,” he said.  “Rushing like that, that’s when it’s dangerous.”⁶⁵

Human Rights Watch researchers saw scars and cuts on nearly every one of the children we interviewed, including some that were still bandaged.  When we interviewed Tomás A., thirteen, for example, he had just left the cane field.  Setting down a knife, he showed us cuts and scars on his blackened hands.⁶⁶  Cuts on the fingers or the feet are most common, fourteen-year-old David F. told us.  “Right now I have a cut on my foot,” he said, unwrapping a bandage to show us a gash on the top of his foot.⁶⁷  Almost all of the other children we spoke with told us that they had cut themselves while harvesting cane:

• Edgar C. cut himself on the foot with his corvo during the 2001-2002 harvest, when he was eleven years old.⁶⁸

• “I cut myself on the leg,” said thirteen-year-old Gilbert C., showing us a scar on his left shin.  “There was a lot of blood.  I got stitches at the clinic.”  His mother, who was present during our interview, told us, “This happened last year, when he was twelve.”⁶⁹

• “I’ve had two accidents myself, with the corvo,” said Ronaldo L., a fourteen-year-old in Sonsonate.  He pointed to his legs and demonstrated with a chopping motion how he had cut himself.  Our researcher saw scars on his shin and just above his ankle.  Asked if the cuts bled, he replied, “Lots.”⁷⁰

• “I have cut myself only one time,” fourteen-year-old Jaime L. told us.  “I cut myself below the knee.”  Jaime’s brother Rubén, age sixteen, reported, “I have cut my hands and feet.”  Both use corvos to harvest cane.⁷¹

• “I was cut here, and here, and here,” said Manny C., age fourteen, pointing to his shin, his knee, and his foot.  “The cuts were from the corvo.  I’ve been injured other times, like five other times, but they were small injuries,” he told Human Rights Watch.⁷²

• “Sometimes there are accidents,” said fifteen-year-old Javier R.  When we asked him if he had been injured, he said, “Here,” pointing to a scar on his finger and raising his pant legs.  “I have a lot of scars on my legs.”  His most recent injury was in January, one month before our interview, when he cut himself with a corvo.⁷³

• Jimmy D., fifteen, told us that he had been injured at least four times while cutting cane, pointing to scars on his fingers.⁷⁴

• “The second year I worked, I cut my hand,” said Rafael J., sixteen, showing us a one-inch scar.  “I was about ten years old.”⁷⁵

• “Yes, there are accidents.  They happen when you’re cutting with the corvo.  Sometimes you have to go to the hospital,” said seventeen-year-old Alberto B.  When we asked him where workers were injured, he replied, “More than anywhere else on the feet.”  He has been injured three times while cutting cane, most recently during the 2002 harvest.  “It was serious.  I went to the hospital,” he said.  “I spent a month like that, one month without working.”⁷⁶

• “Last year, during the last harvest, I cut myself about ten times, but only one was serious,” said Ernesto S., eighteen.  Showing us a scar, he said, “I cut myself on the foot here, really hard.  I had to go to the hospital because there was a lot of blood.”⁷⁷

• “You can give yourself an injury with the machete,” said Gabriela Y., an eighteen-year-old in Cuscatlán who has cut cane since she was twelve.  We asked her if she had been injured, and she replied, “On my hands and on my feet.  My fingers.”  She showed us scars on her hands and thumb.  “There’s another one on my knee,” she said.⁷⁸  Cristina E., a fourteen-year-old walking with Gabriela, told us that she had also cut herself while cutting cane.⁷⁹

Injuries are frequent even among adults. “Machete cuts on your foot are common,” said Fernando A., twenty-one.  “It’s happened to me a number of times.”⁸⁰  Nelson R., twenty-two, showed Human Rights Watch an injury he had suffered ten days before we interviewed him.  “I was working, cutting the cane, and the corvo slipped,” he explained, pointing to his left hand.  “It cut through two tendons.”⁸¹

Exposure to Hazardous Substances

Herbicide Application

We heard few cases of children who fumigated sugarcane.  In Cuscatlán, an adult worker showed us a fumigation tank, demonstrating how it was used by strapping it to his back and holding the nozzle in one hand.  “I do this and also the oldest ones,” he said, referring to his sixteen- and seventeen-year-old sons.  “We do this in May,” he said.⁸²

But most of those we interviewed agreed that such cases were rare.  “Here only the adults use the tanks,” an adult worker told us.⁸³  “My brother has done this,” Miguel G. told us, saying that his brother was eighteen the first time he worked with herbicides.⁸⁴  Our interviews matched the IPEC study, which reported that out of the 168 children interviewed for the study, only one had worked with herbicides.⁸⁵

Cutting and Planting Unburned Cane

Green cane, cane that has not been burned before cutting to remove the leaves and the spines on the stalk, is used for planting.  When they plant, children and adults suffer skin irritations from contact with the leaves and stalks of the cane.  Alma S., a fifteen-year-old from a community in the Department of San Salvador who planted sugarcane in December 2002 and January 2003, told us, “I had huge blisters and scars on my hands, especially on my palms, the first day.”⁸⁶  Children who cut green cane also described such injuries.  “You have to wear closed shoes, a long-sleeved shirt, a cap, and gloves,” said Gilbert C.’s mother, who planted cane in 2002.⁸⁷

Most of the children we interviewed told us that they took some of the basic precautions described by Gilbert C.’s mother, typically reporting that they wore long-sleeved shirts and closed shoes.  Very few wore gloves or hats.  The same was true of the workers we observed cutting cane in the fields.  When we asked why they did not wear gloves or hats, children and adults commonly reported that they would be uncomfortably hot if they wore these articles of clothing.  In addition, nearly every worker we asked told us that cutting cane is more dangerous with gloves because gloves do not allow them to grip their tools securely.⁸⁸

Working with Burned Cane

With the exception of cane that is used for planting, sugarcane is usually burned before it is cut to remove the leaves from the stalks.  “Burning, that’s where they program certain manzanas to burn, the ones they’re going to cut, a certain amount of cane.  That’s burning.  It’s already burned when we arrive to cut,” Nelson R. told Human Rights Watch.⁸⁹

Burning usually happens early in the morning or the previous day, well before the workers arrive.  We asked if the cane was ever still hot to the touch when they began cutting, but most of the children we interviewed told us that it was not.  “It’s just a little warm, you see,” Ronaldo L. explained.  “It’s already finished burning.”⁹⁰

“They do that in the afternoon so the field can be cut the next day.  It’s not burning when we cut,” said twelve-year-old Pedro M.  “There was only one time that it was still burning when we arrived.  The overseers forgot to burn it in the afternoon.  We waited for about fifteen minutes and then we began cutting.  You could feel it a little, but not much.”⁹¹  When workers enter cane fields shortly after the fields are burned, they sometimes suffer burns on their feet, Benjamin Smith of the ILO told us.⁹²

The IPEC study found that “although cutting is done when the fire is no longer burning, smoke and a polluted environment always remain, making breathing difficult and bothering the eyes.”⁹³  In addition, even burned cane causes some skin irritation.  “The burned cane doesn’t sting like the unburned cane.  But it still has spines, so it still stings even though it is burned.  It is prickly.  It stays when you wash.  [The black soot] takes days to wear off,” said Antonio R., a nineteen-year-old who told us that he began to cut cane when he was seventeen.⁹⁴

As a result, Miguel G. told Human Rights Watch, “the majority [of the workers] wear shoes and shirts, only long-sleeved shirts” to minimize contact with cane.  “It’s also dirty when it’s burned,” he said.⁹⁵  “It stains your hands,” fifteen-year-old Edward O. said.  “The little hairs get in [your hands] and it’s hard to get them out because they are small.  I worked without a hat or gloves—you can’t grab the cane with gloves.  I wore shoes.”⁹⁶

“Without gloves, the work takes a lot out of you.  The leaves sting you,” said Alex Q., fifteen.  In spite of that fact, he told us that most workers do not wear gloves when they cut cane.  “It’s just one or two” workers in the cuadrilla who wear gloves,he reported.⁹⁷  Alex’s observation coincided with what we heard in other interviews.  Eleven-year-old Carlos T. told us, “I wore shoes but not gloves.”⁹⁸  Similarly, Pablo N., age seventeen, wears shoes and long-sleeved shirts, but no gloves.  He told us that some of the other workers are barefoot.⁹⁹  “Some wear them, but very few,” a former labor inspector said of gloves.  “People don’t like them because of the heat.”¹⁰⁰ 

Access to Medical Treatment

Medical care is often not available on the plantations.  “There is a doctor on the hacienda, but the thing is that he gets there only in the afternoon, and I was injured in the morning,” said Ernesto S., eighteen.  Showing us a scar, he said, “I cut myself on the foot here, really hard.  I had to go to the hospital because there was a lot of blood.”  He told us that the doctor arrives at about 2:00 p.m.  Workers can see the doctor if they are injured, but they must wait until he or she gets there.  Ernesto told us that the last time somebody in his cuadrilla cut himself on the foot, “he had to go to the hospital because the doctor wasn’t there.”  That employee was out for five days.¹⁰¹  Edgar C., then eleven, had a similar experience when he cut himself on the foot with his corvo during the 2001-2002 harvest.  “I went to the hospital,” he said, telling us that there was no doctor on the plantation where he worked that day.¹⁰²

As a result, workers must often pay for the cost of their medical treatment, regardless of whether they are listed on the employment rolls.  They are not reimbursed by their employers despite a provision in the labor code that makes employers responsible for medical expenses resulting from on-the-job injuries.¹⁰³  When Ernesto S. cut his foot, for example, his mother took him to the hospital.  He paid ¢50 ($5.71) for medical treatment.¹⁰⁴

Edgar C. gave a similar account, telling Human Rights Watch that after he was injured, “My mother paid the hospital; I’m not sure how much.”¹⁰⁵  We heard frequent accounts from children and adults who paid for medical care after they were injured on the job, sometimes costing them more than a day’s pay.  For example:

• “We paid the doctor ¢150 [$17.14]” for medical care, seventeen-year-old Alberto B. reported.¹⁰⁶ 

• A woman in one household we visited told us that she always had to pay when her children received injuries while cutting cane.  “It’s ¢15 [$1.71] to go to the clinic.  For something serious, they charge even more, maybe ¢100 [$11.43],” she told Human Rights Watch.¹⁰⁷

• Ignacio S., a fourteen-year-old in Sonsonate, paid ¢80 [$9.14] for medical treatment when he cut his left thumb in 2001 at age twelve.¹⁰⁸ 

• When thirteen-year-old Gilbert C. cut himself on the leg, his mother paid ¢10 ($1.14) for his medical treatment.  “This happened last year, when he was twelve,” she told us.¹⁰⁹

• Miguel G. paid for stitches after an accident he had when he was seventeen.  “It cost ¢10 [$1.14],” he said.¹¹⁰ 

• David F., fourteen, paid $1 for medical care at a clinic.¹¹¹ 

• Manny C.’s mother took him to a clinic to get stitches after he cut himself on the shin. “There’s no doctor on the hacienda,” he explained.  His mother paid for his medical care.¹¹²

The cost of medical care leads some children to forego it.  When fifteen-year-old Javier R. cut himself with a corvo, for example, he did not see a doctor.  “I wrapped it up and returned to work the next day,” he said.  When we asked him why he didn’t see a doctor, he replied, “We don’t have the money to pay him.  It’s about $2 that we have to pay.”  Javier told us that although there is a doctor on the plantation, workers sometimes have to pay to see him.  “Sometimes you don’t tell the caporal [that you have been injured] and you have to pay.  You have to tell the caporal so that he gives you a paper.  If you don’t have the paper, you have to pay.”¹¹³ 

Under El Salvador’s Social Security Law,¹¹⁴ employers are required to insure their workers by depositing employer dues and worker contributions each month with the Salvadoran Social Security Institute (Instituto Salvadoreño del Seguro Social, ISSS); employers must deduct the worker contributions from employee salaries.¹¹⁵  Workers, their spouses or life partners, and their children are eligible for free ISSS health services if they can establish that social security payments have been made on their behalf.¹¹⁶ 

Most of the children and adults we spoke with did not know whether their employers withheld social security contributions from their paychecks, but some were very definite that their employers did not.  “They don’t take out social security” from the workers’ pay, reported twenty-two-year-old Nelson R.¹¹⁷

Inspectors from the ISSS Department of Affiliation and Inspection oversee enforcement of the Social Security Law and its regulations.¹¹⁸  According to several Labor Ministry officials, when labor inspectors uncover employer violations of social security obligations, they also notify the ISSS inspections department.¹¹⁹  In theory, then, two inspection bodies, one from the ISSS and the other from the Labor Inspectorate, collaborate to ensure the effective application of Salvadoran laws governing social security.  But as Human Rights Watch has found in other labor sectors, this coordination may not occur in practice.¹²⁰

Hours of Work

Children and adults commonly reported that they cut cane for four to six hours each day.  Manny C., age fourteen, told us, “We begin at 6:00 a.m. and sometimes work until 10:00 a.m.”¹²¹  Some worked longer.  For example, Felipe D., sixteen, began work between 5:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m.  “At 1:00 p.m. we would stop.  It was very hot, but I didn’t feel the heat too much,” he said.¹²²  Workers do not take many breaks, they told Human Rights Watch.  “If you rest, you leave work late,” twenty-one-year-old Fernando A. observed.¹²³

To get to the plantations, most children travel between thirty minutes to an hour, usually on foot.  Moises B., age seventeen, walks thirty minutes to the fields.  “At 4:30 a.m. I leave the house,” he told Human Rights Watch.¹²⁴  Sixteen-year-old Felipe D. caught a ride on a truck to get to the fields.  “At 4:00 a.m. they would come to get us,” he said.¹²⁵ 

The IPEC study found that 92.7 percent of the boys and girls interviewed worked close to the area in which they lived.  In the Department of San Miguel, however, many of those interviewed for the study traveled by truck from Usulután and other departments, meaning that they left their houses at 5 a.m. and traveled up to two hours each way.¹²⁶ 

Wages

When IPEC examined child labor in El Salvador’s sugarcane fields, it found that wages were generally between $3.20 and $3.26 per tarea, with higher wages in San Miguel, averaging $3.43 per tarea.¹²⁷  Most of the children and adults we interviewed told us that the pay was in this range, with some variation.¹²⁸

It is common for a younger child to share a tarea with an adult or another child.  When two workers share a tarea, only one is listed on the employment rolls and is paid directly.  For example, Manny C., fourteen, told Human Rights Watch, “I normally do one tarea.  I work with a friend I have.  He’s fourteen.  He receives the pay, and then we split it.  The owner knows that the two of us are working.  He comes [to the fields] to see the workers.  He knows how many of us are kids.  He’s the one who gives us the work we have to do.”¹²⁹

Children who share a tarea with another worker usually divide the pay, but that is not always the case.  Pedro M., the twelve-year-old who worked during the 2001-2002 harvest, shared two tareas with an adult who lived nearby.  “I helped him, and sometimes he gave me something,” he told Human Rights Watch.  “Sometimes he gave me half the pay, sometimes no.”¹³⁰

Workers who are injured on the job generally receive half their normal pay if a doctor certifies that they are temporarily unable to work as the result of the injury, placing them on a status known as incapacidad.  (In fact, the labor code requires employers to pay workers 75 percent of their basic pay when they are temporarily unable to work because of an injury they suffer on the job.¹³¹  We never heard of a worker who received this amount while temporarily unable to work.)  “They continue to pay you.  Half the wages is what they pay you,” Nelson R. said of workers injured on the job.  He had cut a tendon several days before our interview. ¹³²  Similarly, when Ernesto S., an eighteen-year-old, cut himself on the foot, his employer gave him four days off work at half pay to recover from the injury.¹³³

“You always earn something [if injured], but just a little,” said David F., fourteen.  “Twenty colones a day [$2.29] is what you’re going to receive.”  We asked him if that was always the case.  “The majority of times, yes,” he replied.¹³⁴

Those who are not listed on the employment rolls do not receive anything if they are injured on the job.  When we asked David whether Manny C., the fourteen-year-old friend who shares the tarea with him, would get paid if he was injured, David said, “If someone is a helper, no.  So with [Manny], they wouldn’t pay him anything because he’s the helper.  They only pay the listed worker.”¹³⁵  We heard the same from an adult worker in Cuscatlán.  “They pay half the wages when somebody is injured,” the worker told Human Rights Watch.  “But if it’s a helper, he receives nothing.”¹³⁶

We heard occasional reports that even listed employees did not receive the partial pay to which they were entitled under the labor code.¹³⁷  In addition, those who are offered half pay do not always take it, preferring to return to work as soon as possible to earn their full wages.  When fifteen-year-old Javier R. cut himself, he decided not to take time to recover from his injury even though his employer would pay him at the reduced rate.  “They told me they would give me the incapacidad, but I didn’t want one.  That’s because the incapacidad pays one less.  It only pays ¢20 [$2.29].”¹³⁸

Access to Water and Food

Workers must bring their own water to the cane fields; none is available on the sugar plantations.   “You carry your own water.  I take two liters with me,” said eighteen-year-old Miguel G.  Asked what workers do if they run out of water, he replied, “Your coworkers give you water.  There’s no water nearby.”¹³⁹  Similarly, Manny C., age fourteen, told us, “We have to bring water,” telling our researcher that he took a liter-and-a-half bottle with him to the fields.  “If you forget, somebody has to give you water.  There’s no water there [in the fields] to drink.”¹⁴⁰  “It’s hot with the sun,” said thirteen-year-old Tomás A. “When we run out of water like today, we have to go to the houses to ask for water because we come from over there,” pointing in the direction of the next community.¹⁴¹

By law, sugarcane workers must receive food at work or a sum of money in lieu of food.¹⁴²  Most children and adults told Human Rights Watch that they received meals without charge at the end of the workday.  “Yes, nearly every day we receive lunch,” Miguel G. told Human Rights Watch.  “We get beans and tortillas.”  Workers do not have to pay for their food, he reported.¹⁴³  “We don’t need to pay for food.  They give it to us at work,” said Nelson R., a twenty-two-year-old worker in the Department of San Salvador.¹⁴⁴

But Pablo N., a seventeen-year-old in La Libertad, does not receive food at work.  “You bring your own food and water,” he said.¹⁴⁵  In the department of San Salvador, eighteen-year-old Ernesto S. also told us that he eats at home; he does not receive a meal at work.¹⁴⁶

Some workers pay for the food they receive at work.  For example, Gilbert C.’s mother told us that workers at the nearby cooperative were charged ¢4.00 ($0.46) per day for their meals.  “It’s only the worker who’s noted on the list who is charged,” she said, referring to the practice of considering some workers helpers.  In this instance, not being listed on the employment rolls may be to a worker’s advantage:  Gilbert C. was not charged for his meals, but he ate with the rest of the workers.¹⁴⁷

The International Prohibition on Harmful or Hazardous Child Labor

The international and regional instruments governing child labor—the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Protocol of San Salvador, the Minimum Age Convention, and the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention—generally prohibit the employment of children under the age of eighteen in harmful or hazardous work.  In a significant exception to this general prohibition, the two ILO instruments, the Minimum Age Convention and the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, allow the employment of children sixteen and above to perform such work if their health, security, and morality are guaranteed.  But the exception does not apply to work that involves the use of dangerous machinery, equipment, and tools, as sugarcane cultivation does.  Salvadoran law reflects the ILO instruments to the extent that it allows children sixteen and older to perform dangerous work if their health and safety is guaranteed, but it does not incorporate the other limits set forth in the ILO instruments.

Many of the provisions of El Salvador’s labor code are drawn from the 1973 Minimum Age Convention.  The Salvadoran labor code does not reflect the stronger protections contained in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Protocol of San Salvador, more recent treaties that do not provide for an exception to the working age of eighteen for hazardous employment.

The ILO developed the Minimum Age Convention as a comprehensive effort to tackle an issue it had addressed piecemeal for over fifty years.  Many of the first international treaties applicable to child labor focused on the minimum age for joining the workforce.  For example, the ILO Forced Labour Convention, adopted in 1930, provided that “[o]nly adult able-bodied males who are of an apparent age of not less than 18 and not more than 45 years may be called upon for forced or compulsory labour.”¹⁴⁸ 

Between 1919 and 1967, a series of ILO conventions established minimum ages for employment in certain occupations deemed to be particularly risky or undesirable for children, including seafaring, mining, construction, manufacturing, night work, and work on fishing vessels.  These instruments usually designated fourteen as the minimum age for such employment; subsequent conventions raised the minimum age to fifteen and then sixteen in several of these sectors.¹⁴⁹  In 1921, the ILO set a minimum age of fourteen for agricultural work undertaken during the school day, placing no age limitation on such employment “outside the hours fixed for school attendance.”¹⁵⁰  It set a general minimum age of fourteen for employment in all other occupations in 1932, raising the age to fifteen in 1937.¹⁵¹

Adopted in 1973, the Minimum Age Convention now provides that the general age of employment “shall not be less than the age of completion of compulsory schooling and, in any case, shall not be less than 15 years.”¹⁵²  An exception to the minimum age of fifteen is made only for a state “whose economy and educational facilities are insufficiently developed,” which may “initially specify a minimum age of 14 years.”¹⁵³  In addition, the Minimum Age Convention authorizes the employment of children aged thirteen through fifteen in “light work,” meaning work that is “not likely to be harmful to their health or development” and “not such as to prejudice their attendance at school, their participation in vocational orientation or training programmes approved by the competent authority or their capacity to benefit from the instruction received.”¹⁵⁴  A state that has initially specified a minimum employment age of fourteen may authorize light work for children twelve and over.¹⁵⁵

Salvadoran law generally conforms to the terms of the Minimum Age Convention, providing that in general children under fourteen and those who have not yet completed basic education “may not be employed in any form of work.”  Children twelve and above may perform “light work” that does not prejudice their health or development and does not interfere with their education.¹⁵⁶  But in addition, in a provision that runs counter to the terms of the Minimum Age Convention, the Salvadoran Constitution authorizes the employment by children under the age of fourteen “when it is considered to be indispensable for [their] survival or [that] of their family, as long as it does not impede their completion of the minimum obligatory instruction.”¹⁵⁷

Other early ILO efforts to regulate child labor took the form of conventions requiring a medical assessment of a child’s “fitness” for particular types of work.¹⁵⁸  The age limitations and the medical examination requirements foreshadowed the current approach in international law, which now explicitly protects children from any employment that is harmful or hazardous.  The Minimum Age Convention introduced the general principle that all children should be protected from harmful employment:

The minimum age for admission to any type of employment or work which by its nature or the circumstances in which it was carried out is likely to jeopardize the health, safety or morals of young persons shall not be less than 18 years.¹⁵⁹

The Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, adopted by the International Labour Organization in 1999, developed the prohibition on harmful or hazardous work more fully.  Under the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, some forms of child labor are flatly prohibited, such as slavery or practices similar to slavery.  Other types of work are prohibited if they constitute “work which, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children.”¹⁶⁰ 

The Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention leaves it to state parties to determine what constitutes prohibited hazardous work in consultation with workers’ and employers’ organizations, considering “relevant international standards, in particular . . . the Worst Forms of Child Labour Recommendation.”¹⁶¹  Among other factors, the recommendation calls for consideration of the extent to which the work involves “work with dangerous machinery, equipment and tools” or “work in an unhealthy environment which may, for example, expose children to hazardous substances, agents or processes, or to temperatures, noise levels, or vibrations damaging to their health.”¹⁶²

These ILO instruments contain a significant exception to the general prohibition on harmful or hazardous work for children under eighteen, allowing children sixteen and over to perform such work under conditions that protect their health, security, and morality.  For example, the Minimum Age Convention provides that state parties may “after consultation with the organisations of employers and workers concerned, where such exist, authorise [such] employment or work as from the age of 16 years on condition that the health, safety and morals of the young persons concerned are fully protected and that the young persons have received adequate specific instructions or vocational training in the relevant branch of activity.”¹⁶³  Similar language appears in the Worst Forms of Child Labour Recommendation¹⁶⁴ and in the Safety and Health in Agriculture Convention,¹⁶⁵ a treaty which the ILO adopted in 2001 but which no country in the Americas has yet ratified.

Salvadoran law reflects the ILO instruments, meaning that it does not unequivocally prohibit children under eighteen from performing dangerous work:

• Work by those under eighteen must be “suited to their age, physical state, and development.”¹⁶⁶
• Children under eighteen may not perform “dangerous or unhealthy work.”  But those sixteen and older may perform dangerous work—defined as work that “may occasion the death or immediate and grave injury” of the worker¹⁶⁷—“provided that their health, security, and morality be fully guaranteed” and that they have received professional training relevant to the field of work.¹⁶⁸

The ILO instruments are not the only source of international law on child labor.  The Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (known as the Protocol of San Salvador) both contain provisions addressing child labor.¹⁶⁹ The Convention on the Rights of the Child guarantees all children under eighteen the right “to be protected from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous, interfere with the child’s education, or be harmful to the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.”¹⁷⁰  And under the protocol, state parties undertake to guarantee, among other protections:

The prohibition of night work or unhealthy or dangerous working conditions and, in general, of all work which jeopardizes health, safety, or morals, for persons under 18 years of age. As regards minors under the age of 16, the work day shall be subordinated to the provisions regarding compulsory education and in no case shall work constitute an impediment to school attendance or a limitation on benefiting from education received . . . .¹⁷¹

Neither treaty provides for an exception that would allow the state to lower the working age below eighteen for hazardous employment.  The Protocol explicitly forecloses such a possibility, calling for the “prohibition . . . of all work which jeopardizes health, safety or morals” of those under eighteen.¹⁷²

The Protocol of San Salvador and the Convention on the Rights of the Child were developed a decade and a half after the General Conference of the ILO adopted the Minimum Age Convention, and the stronger protections they contain reflect the international and regional communities’ evolving commitment to eliminate hazardous labor for all children under the age of eighteen.¹⁷³  Nevertheless, a strict reading of El Salvador’s international legal obligations suggests that it has adopted the weaker standard in the Minimum Age Convention rather than the more protective standard embodied in the Protocol of San Salvador and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.  El Salvador ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990, almost immediately after the U.N. General Assembly adopted it in 1989.  It ratified the protocol in 1995, seven years after the General Assembly of the Organization of American States adopted it.  And it ratified the Minimum Age Convention in 1996, twenty-three years after the ILO developed the treaty.  When two treaties contain conflicting provisions, “the earlier treaty”—the one first ratified—“applies only to the extent that its provisions are compatible with those of the later treaty.”¹⁷⁴

The most recent ILO instruments have narrowed the exception that allows hazardous labor by sixteen-year-olds in some circumstances.  The Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, ratified by El Salvador in 2000, does not itself provide for any exceptions to the minimum age of eighteen for harmful or hazardous child labor, but it does direct states to consider the Worst Forms of Child Labour Recommendation among other “relevant international standards” in order to determine the “types of work” that are likely to harm the health, safety, or morals of children.¹⁷⁵  The recommendation repeats the language of article 3(3) of the Minimum Age Convention,¹⁷⁶ but it limits the possibility of authorizing the employment of sixteen-year-olds to “work in an unhealthy environment which may, for example, expose children to hazardous substances, agents or processes, or to temperatures, noise levels, or vibrations damaging to their health.”¹⁷⁷  It does not authorize exceptions for other types of work, including “work with dangerous machinery, equipment and tools”¹⁷⁸ and “work under particularly difficult conditions such as work for long hours.”¹⁷⁹  To the extent that the exception in Salvadoran law is not as narrowly tailored as the Worst Forms of Child Labour Recommendation, it falls short of the international obligations to which El Salvador has agreed to be bound.

Sugarcane cultivation does not fit within the narrow exception set forth in the recommendation.  As this report documents, cane cultivation is hazardous primarily because it involves the use of dangerous tools.  Even if sugarcane cultivation did fit within the exception for work by sixteen-year-olds, no government official suggested to us that national laws, regulations, or the Ministry of Labor had authorized such work.  In any event, under either the recommendation’s narrow exception or the broader exception contained in the Minimum Age Convention and Salvadoran law, such authorization could not be made until children’s health and safety has been “fully protected” and “adequate specific instruction or vocational training” provided,¹⁸⁰ a guarantee that workers and the government now manifestly fail to fulfill.  Even so, the exception to the general prohibition on harmful or hazardous work for children under eighteen is a loophole that should be closed immediately, whether by amending the applicable international instruments, revising the Worst Forms of Child Labour Recommendation, or reforming of the Salvadoran labor code.