If Coca-Cola is serious about avoiding complicity in the use of hazardous child labor," said Bochenek, "the company should recognize its responsibility to ensure that respect for human rights extend beyond its direct suppliers."
Excerpts from Conclusion of Human Rights Watch report:
"Harvesting cane is dangerous work. It requires children to use machetes and other sharp knives to cut sugarcane and strip the leaves off the stalks, work they perform for up to nine hours each day in the hot sun. Nearly every child we spoke with told us that he or she had suffered gashes on the hands or legs while cutting cane. These risks led one former labor inspector to tell Human Rights Watch, "It's indisputable-sugarcane is the most dangerous" of all forms of agricultural work.
"Medical care is often not available on the plantations, and children must frequently pay for the cost of their medical treatment.They are not reimbursed by their employers despite a provision in the Salvadoran labor code that makes employers responsible for medical expenses resulting from on-the-job injuries.
"Children who work on sugarcane plantations often miss the first several weeks or months of school.For example, a teacher in a rural community north of San Salvador estimated that about 20 percent of her class did not attend school during the harvest.Other children drop out of school altogether.Those who attend afternoon sessions after putting in a full day's work in the cane fields often have difficulties keeping up in class."
Filmmaker Mark Thomas explores Coca-Cola's child labor abuses in the sugarcane fields of El Salvador.