Children work illegally in Mexico's farm fields (1/4ページ)

Adriana Salgado, 10, spends her days in a field in northwestern Mexico, picking spinach, cabbage and other vegetables that fill American salad bowls.

Salgado attends school for one hour a day, and she doesn't know how to read. Her 15-year-old sister, who works with her, can't read either. Salgado had an 8-year-old brother, too, until he was crushed by a tractor while working in a tomato field last year in a case that garnered nationwide attention.

About 300,000 youngsters such as Salgado work illegally in Mexico's fields, the United Nations Children's Fund says. In some cases, child farm labor is used to produce goods that are exported to the United States. The practice persists despite harsh criticism from international groups, rules imposed by U.S. distributors and increasingly strident warnings from the Mexican government.

That Adriana continues to work despite her brother's death indicates the depth of the problem in Mexico. Cruz Salgado, her father, says his family needs the $7 a day Adriana contributes.

Otherwise, the $20 a day he and his wife earn as migrant workers wouldn't be enough to get by.

"I wish they didn't have to work," he said by telephone from a migrant camp in the state of Sinaloa. "But we need the money."

David Salgado died Jan. 6, 2007, at the Los Pinos tomato farm in Sinaloa.

"He was going to empty his bucket, and the tractor driver didn't see him and went right over him," Cruz Salgado said, his voice choking up.