From The New York Times
CHIMALTENANGO, March 11 — Work starts early for the people of the Guatemalan countryside, sometimes as early as 5 or 6. Not the time, the age.
Guatemalan children shine shoes and make bricks. They cut cane and mop floors. At some factories exporting to the United States, they sew and sort and chop, often in conditions so onerous they violate even Guatemala’s very loose labor laws.
“They like us young people because we don’t say anything when they yell at us,” said Alma de los Ángeles Zambrano, 15, who recently quit after 18 months at a food processing plant to work part time for an organization trying to improve conditions for young workers.
Further reading here, and below.
