HUMAN Rights Watch alleged today that children as young as seven are working long hours in US fields harvesting pesticide-laced tobacco under dangerous conditions.

The campaign group published a detailed report interviewing more than 140 children working on farms in North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia, where a majority of the country’s tobacco is grown.

The group noted that most of what it documented is legal under US law but aims to highlight the practice and urge both governments and tobacco companies to take further steps to protect children.

“The US has failed families by not meaningfully protecting child farmworkers from dangers to their health and safety, including on tobacco farms,” said Margaret Wurth, children’s rights researcher and co-author of the report. 

“Farming is hard work anyway, but children working on tobacco farms get so sick that they throw up, get covered by pesticides and have no real protective gear.”

Children interviewed by the group in 2012 and 2013 reported vomiting, nausea and headaches while working on tobacco farms. 

The children also said they worked long hours — often in extreme heat — without overtime pay or sufficient breaks and wore no, or inadequate, protective gear.

US agriculture laws allow children to work longer hours at younger ages and in more hazardous conditions than children in any other industry. With their parents' permission, children as young as 12 can be hired for unlimited hours outside school hours and there’s no minimum age on small farms.