Report: Illegal labor by children soars in US

The US federal government is investigating more than 700 cases of possible child labor violations and said it has found almost 4,500 children working illegally since the start of the fiscal year — a 44 percent increase over the previous year.

Earlier this month, Duvan Perez, a 16-year-old Guatemalan immigrant and a ninth grader at a middle school, died when he was working on a sanitation crew at a poultry processing plant in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

On July 14, he was cleaning a conveyor belt at the Mar-Jac Poultry processing plant and became entangled in the belt, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.

Perez's coworkers had tried to extract him from the equipment, which stretched to the plant's ceiling. Police found the teenager dead, and Forrest County Coroner Butch Benedict said in a text message that Perez died from traumatic asphyxia and blunt force trauma, according to the AP.

Labor Department officials say they are investigating possible child labor violations at Mar-Jac, along with an ongoing death investigation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Mar-Jac Poultry blamed an unnamed staffing company for hiring Perez to work at their plant, saying that Perez's paperwork seemed to inaccurately represent his age.

The Labor Department has completed 765 child labor investigations and identified 4,474 children employed in violation of federal child labor laws since the current fiscal year began on Oct 1, officials said Wednesday, AP reported.

The department said child labor violations have increased nearly 70 percent nationwide since 2018.

"These are work environments that are unfit for adults, much less for minors," Wendy Cervantes, director of immigration and immigrant families at the Center for Law and Social Policy, told the AP.

"Duvan's tragic story is unfortunately too common, and too many kids like him are continuing to work in inappropriate settings across the country in direct violation of our child labor laws," Cervantes said.

Perez was the third teenager who died in an industrial accident this summer.

In early July, 16-year-old Michael Schuls died after becoming entangled in a wood-stacking machine at a sawmill in northern Wisconsin, where he was employed. Similarly, in June, another 16-year-old, Will Hampton, died when he was pinned between a semi-truck and its trailer at a landfill in Lee's Summit, Missouri.

Most child labor violation cases involved routine violations, such as teenagers working beyond the allowed hours. But some cases go beyond routine violations, and there have been instances of children working in hazardous environments, like meatpacking plants, according to the AP.

Labor officials on Wednesday also noted an 87 percent increase in company fines for child labor violations, reaching $6.6 million since October, up from nearly $4.4 million in 2022.

One of the most recent fines was announced by the Labor Department on Tuesday, imposing penalties on McDonald's franchises in Louisiana and Texas for violating labor laws by employing teenage workers for extended hours beyond what is allowed.

The franchises were found to have allowed 14- and 15-year-olds to operate manual deep fryers and trash compactors, activities strictly prohibited for employees under the age of 16, the AP reported.

Despite the increase in fines, critics argue that the current maximum fines for hiring children, amounting to $15,138, are so low that they fail to act as a strong deterrent for employers from hiring underage workers, particularly in a tight labor market, according to NBC News.