Many people in the United States assume that, even without ratification of the CRC, the US upholds international child rights principles. This assessment calls that assumption into question. On a state-by-state basis, we assessed how state laws meet international standards regarding four core child rights issues: child marriage, corporal punishment, child labor, and juvenile justice. We found that most US states are overwhelmingly noncompliant with international child rights standards on these four issues.
In the United States, many of the issues addressed by the Convention are left to the jurisdiction of individual states, not the federal government. As a result, the protection and advancement of child rights varies from state to state.
In recognition that state-level reform is an important channel for improving the US’s child rights record, this assessment grades and ranks US states on the legal protections they extend to their children on four key issues—child marriage, corporal punishment, child labor, and juvenile justice—and offers a blueprint for reform. All 50 states are measured on these four categories through an assessment of 12 specific state-level laws. See more about our methodology here.
This report does not attempt to assess states’ performance on all children’s rights enshrined in the CRC, which includes the right to education, to health, to an adequate standard of living, to freedom of expression, and a broad array of other rights.
Thousands of children work in US agriculture at an age that is prohibited in every other sector. Child farmworkers often begin working in the fields at age 11 or 12, and Human Rights Watch has interviewed child farmworkers as young as 7. Not a single state complies with the CRC by setting the minimum age of employment to 15 years old in the agriculture sector.
More US child workers die in agriculture than in any other industry. A child dies in a farm accident once every three days in the United States, and every day, at least 33 children are injured while working on US farms although there may be over four times more injuries than are reported given inadequate surveillance and reporting methods. As documented by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, many fatalities involve power machinery from which, in any industry besides farming, children would be protected. Dangerous farming conditions and their impacts disproportionately affect migrant children and children of color.
Not a single state complies with the CRC by setting the minimum age of work in hazardous conditions in agriculture to 18 years old.
Twelve states have stronger protections than the federal standard. The details of these standards vary – for example California has stronger protections for children under 12 working on family farms. Massachusetts is the only state to prohibit minors under 16 from working in tobacco fields. Oregon prohibits all minors from operating power machinery. Of all states, Florida has the strongest standard, setting a minimum age of 16 and also further prohibiting all minors under 18 from work in certain hazardous agriculture conditions.