In the United States, it's illegal for children under 18 to buy cigarettes. But it's permissible for those very same children to be a part of the cultivation and harvesting of tobacco, which produces side effects far worse than if they'd simply taken a puff. Human Rights Watch has released a new 138-page report, "Tobacco's Hidden Children: Hazardous Child Labor in US Tobacco Farming," which exposes the dangerous conditions that children working on tobacco farms in the U.S. are subjected to from habitual exposure to nicotine, toxic pesticides and numerous other dangers.

The report, which interviewed 141 child tobacco workers between the ages of 7 and 17, documented the conditions of children working on tobacco farms in North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia, the states where 90 percent of U.S. tobacco is grown and from where tthe source for the world's largest tobacco companies, including Marlboro, Newport, Camel, and Pall Mall. Most of those underage workers are the children of Latino immigrants.

Legally employed on Tobacco farms but unprotected from hazardous working conditions, these children report that they experience vomiting, nausea, headaches and dizziness while working — symptoms experienced by tose suffering from acute nicotine poisoning. Beyond being poisoned, these children are also exhausted by long, 50 to 60-hour work weeks in severe heat, with little to no protective gear and no overtime pay.

Two Human Rights Watch researchers conducted interviews in the preferred language of the children, often Spanish, interviewing them in small groups of two to five at a time in a variety of settings, including at home, school, in restaurants and other public spaces. They spoke to both parents and children and changed the names for confidentiality.

Margaret Wurth, children's rights researcher at Human Rights Watch and co-author of the report, stated that it was to no one's surprised that the children who were exposed to dangerous nicotine, without smoking, are becoming sick from their work on the farms. Nicotine poisoning, however, isn't the most dangerous thing the children encounter while tobacco farming. They handle dangerous machinery and sharp tools that result in cuts; they work while wearing improper footwear or barefoot on slippery ground; they lift and move heavy loads; they climb barns and precariously stand on beams to hang tobacco without protection.

Pesticides, which rain down on them from nearby tractors, produce vomiting, skin rashes, irritation around the eyes and mouth, dizziness, difficulty breathing and burning eyes. The neurotoxins in those pesticides promise long-term effects: altering the nervous system, increasing risk of cancer, producing issues with learning and cognition, with respiratory and with reproductive health.

These children contract Green Tobacco Sickness, or acute nicotine poisoning, primarily from handling plants when they're wet, and their flu-like symptoms are nothing compared to the resulting brain development issues. Children are particularly susceptible because they are still developing. These tobacco farms also fail to offer proper information about nicotine poisoning and the risk of pesticide exposure, according to the report.

The children who spoke to Human Rights Watch about their experiences on the farms complained about severe thirst and headaches; pressure to work quickly and without breaks; unscrupulous wage practices; strained backs and wrist from repetitive movements; no access to toilets; being made to eat meals with pesticide-ridden hands because of a lack a of hand-washing stations; cuts because of hand-harvesting with the sharp tools and heavy machinery, as well as resulting punctures and severed fingers. Rather than offer protective gear, children are dressed in black plastic bags to keep their clothes dry when working in wet fields. Of course, this fails to sufficiently protect them.

"Tobacco companies shouldn't benefit from hazardous child labor," Wurth said, who supported Human Rights Watch's decision to send letters to tobacco companies, requesting that they adopt policies to protect the children they employ. "They have a responsibility to adopt clear, comprehensive policies that get children out of dangerous work on tobacco farms, and make sure the farms follow the rules."

Hundreds of thousands of children in the United States perform agricultural work each year, and an unclear number of those children work on tobacco farms, heading to work at the tender age of 11 or 12. Most children are the offspring of Hispanic immigrants and full-time students, who work on the tobacco farms during the summer in order to assist their families with finances and because it's the only work that undocumented children can find.

In 2012, two-thirds of individuals under 18 who died from occupational injuries were agricultural workers, and there were more than 1,800 nonfatal injuries to children under 18 working on U.S. farms. These children remain unprotected under U.S. Labor Law, and according to Human Right Watch, "children working in agriculture can work longer hours, at younger ages, and in more hazardous conditions than children in any other industry." As young as 12-years-old — and younger on small farms — they are hired to work "unlimited" hours outside of school hours with parental permission. Regulations proposed by the Labor Department in 2011 would have prohibited children under 16 from working on tobacco farms, but they were withdrawn in 2012.

"The U.S. has failed America's families by not meaningfully protecting child farmworkers from dangers to their health and safety, including on tobacco farms," Wurth said. "The Obama administration should endorse regulations that make it clear that work on tobacco farms is hazardous for children, and Congress should enact laws to give child farmworkers the same protections as all other working children."

Human Rights Watch presented their findings and recommendations to 10 companies that purchase tobacco grown in the United States, eight cigarette manufacturing companies, and two international leaf merchants, because large tobacco companies in the U.S. have a say when it comes to ensuring the protection of children from hazardous elements in dangerous work environments.

All of the companies with the exception of one responded, saying they were concerned about child labor in their supply chain — yet these companies continue to fail the children working with them. The companies' standard of protection for the children working on tobacco farms remains weaker than in all other countries from which those companies purchase tobacco.

Human Rights Watch encouraged the companies to prohibit children from engaging in any tasks that could endanger their health and safety, including direct contact with tobacco or dry tobacco. HRW wants those companies to "get children out of hazardous work on tobacco farms and support efforts to provide them with alternative educational and vocational opportunities."

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