Many organizations have tried to capitalize on promoting “awareness” of human trafficking. But awareness-raising without a call to action is ineffective and often misleading. Awareness campaigns, especially those tied to fundraising, typically focus on girls in the sex trades, but recently reported instances involving youth and undocumented people have been associated with industries like food processing.
Meat-packing and chicken-processing plants have been sites of extreme exploitation that may meet the definition of trafficking. However, rather than address such exploitation, Republicans in the state legislatures of Minnesota and Iowa have introduced bills to allow minors to work later hours and in more dangerous jobs. In Iowa, 14- and 15-year-olds would be legally allowed to work in meatpacking plants, and 16- and 17-year-olds would be legally eligible for construction work in Minnesota. These bills would undo a century of child labor laws. Today, workers between the ages of 14 and 17 have restricted working hours, and they are not allowed to work with certain kinds of equipment or chemicals or in some industries.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has exposed abusive working conditions in meat processing plants and more recent exposés have documented children working in dangerous conditions in meatpacking plants. Many of the workers involved are undocumented, and fear that they will be deported if they report workplace abuses. It’s also worth noting that children did not travel to meatpacking plants in Minnesota and Iowa to apply for jobs. In many instances, people were brought to the plants as contractors by businesses that sought them out.
