By Avni Patel, Angela M. Hill, Asa Eslocker and Brian Ross - ABC News Investigation
Children as Young as 5 and 6 Working in the Fields of Large Blueberry Grower; Walmart Severs Ties, Feds Levy Fines. Walmart and the Kroger supermarket chain have severed ties with one of the country’s major blueberry growers after an ABC News investigation found children, including one as young as five-years-old, working in its fields.
The children were discovered at the Adkin Blue Ribbon Packing Company, in South Haven, Michigan, this summer by graduate school students working with ABC News as fellows with the Carnegie Corporation.
The full report on the investigation airs tonight on Nightline.
A five-year-old girl, named Suli, was seen lugging two heavy buckets of blueberries picked by her parents and brothers, aged seven and eight.
An 11-year-old boy in the Adkin fields told the Carnegie fellows he had been picking blueberries since the age of eight.
The owner of the company, Randy Adkin, was once featured on a Walmart billboard advertising his “locally produced and locally sold” blueberries.
“Walmart will not tolerate the use of child labor,” said a spokesperson who said the retailer was unaware of the children at the Adkin facility until contacted by ABC News.
“We will not purchase any additional product from Adkin Blue ribbon Packing Company pending the outcome of an investigation by our ethical sourcing team,” the Walmart spokesperson said.
Separately, the Department of Labor cited Adkin this week for violating federal child labor laws. Inspectors reported they found a six-year-old picking blueberries in Adkin’s fields this summer.
As part of the ABC News investigation, the four Carnegie fellows spent weeks in fruit and vegetable fields in Michigan, New Jersey and North Carolina.
“What it really comes down to is small fingers picking the smaller fruits and vegetables,” said Joel Stonington, a recent graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
In Michigan, a legal aid attorney who works with migrant families, Teresa Hendricks, said the enforcement of the federal child labor law is “very lax.”
On Friday, the United Fresh Produce Association sent a letter to its members referencing the “alarming” ABC News investigation, urging members to “redouble your efforts to ensure that no young children are ever working illegally on our farms.”
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If child labour is used in USA, where there is such a chain of communication, and it does, just imagine how many more countries would turn a blind eye to child exploitation where the similar chain of commnication does not exist,or not allowed to be exposed.
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