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This June 19, the second presidential round will take place, in this democratic process Gustavo Petro, representative of the Colombian left and member of the Historical Pact, will face Rodolfo Hernández, former mayor of Bucaramanga and who has championed the fight once morest corruption. In this round that defines who will be the next president of the country, the candidates who were discarded in the first round or who withdrew have taken positions, some have left with the campaign of the senator from Colombia Humana, others with that of another engineer, Hernández and another who does not identify with any of the campaigns have indicated that they will vote blank.

One of the former candidates who joined the campaign of the former mayor of the capital of Santander was Ingrid Betancourt, a former senator who first went through several groups, the Centro Esperanza Coalition from which she withdrew to run as a candidate for the party she leads, Oxigeno Verde and subsequently, falling into the campaign of the independent candidate Hernández a few days before the first presidential round.

Now following having supported the candidacy of Gustavo Petro in 2018, politics has become one of the senator’s great opponents and even, in an interview he held with the media The Independentassured that he knows that the Historic Pact campaign and its representative seek to commit fraud by buying votes.

“There will be fraud. But our bet is that there will be so many people voting opinion (informed, not bought) in our favor that we will win. This week is decisive. Fraud is endemic in Colombia and the calculations include that margin of fraud. We know that Petro is buying two million votes. All the congressmen have been approached by the Petro campaign to offer them 200 million pesos as a starting point to bring them votes. They have all the money in the world: from the cartels, from Venezuela, from the businessmen who owe them favors”, noted Betancourt who might be the Minister of Foreign Affairs if Rodolfo Hernández wins.

Despite the accusations made by the leader of Oxigeno Verde in the interview with the international media, she added that if Gustavo Petro were the winner they would accept the results and would not seek a way to reverse them.

“The campaign (of Rodolfo Hernández) is going to recognize him. We are not going to lead Colombia into a civil war. The problem is whether Hernández wins. We don’t know what Petro’s exit will be. We have seen in the videos where they appear as a mob. They talk regarding cheating, defaming, putting together narratives to finish off the adversary. Yesterday I was on the streets in a middle class neighborhood and everyone told me that they would vote for the old man, the engineer”, he pointed out.

To the accusations of electoral fraud and vote buying once morest the left-wing presidential candidate, the former candidate added that the alleged threats that Hernández is receiving and for which he remained in the United States for a few days, have been made by the Petristas.

“(The threats) come from Petrism. We are not saying that Gustavo Petro had Rodolfo killed. But as always happened in Colombia: they killed Jorge Eliécer Gaitán. And then to Luis Carlos Galán, they said it was drug trafficking but it was the Liberal Party. They are the politicians, obviously the forces behind the politicians, there are many posters that are with Petro. We are scared because in Colombia they kill. It is the mafia behind Petrismo that threatens Hernández“, I note.

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Xinhua News Agency, Washington, June 13th Roundup: America’s child labor problem is alarming

Xinhua News Agency reporter Sun Ding

Last year, the United Farm Workers Union posted a photo on social media of a 7-year-old boy picking strawberries in a field in Indiana under the scorching sun.

In the American fields, some teenagers and even children are doing the work of adult farm workers. According to estimates by the nonprofit American Farm Worker Employment Training Program, there are still regarding 500,000 child laborers in the country who work in agriculture, and child labor deaths are frequent.

Throughout American history, child labor has emerged in a variety of forms, including child slavery and indentured labor. In 1938, the United States promulgated the “Fair Labor Standards Act”, which stipulated and restricted the use of juveniles and children by employers to participate in labor, but “opened the net” to farmers, and even allowed them to hire children to harvest crops under certain conditions.

To this day, some children in the United States start working from the age of 8, working up to 72 hours a week. In October last year, due to the “labor shortage”, some parts of the United States took up the idea of ​​minors once more and passed legislation to extend the hours that teenagers can work.

U.S. farms are laborious and difficult, and child labor is often exposed to hazards from weather, pesticides, and the use of farm implements. A report released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office in 2018 revealed that from 2003 to 2016, 452 children died from work-related injuries in the United States, of which more than 230 died from agricultural-related activities.

While working, children can experience health problems from exposure to the sun, including heat stroke, dehydration, and even death. In addition, many tobacco farms in the United States employ children to harvest and dry tobacco leaves, resulting in nicotine poisoning and even lung infection in many child laborers. At the same time, child laborers on farms are often required to operate farm implements intended for adults only, including large equipment such as tractors, without adequate training or supervision.

On October 17, 2019, in Iowa, the United States, agricultural machinery was busy in the corn field of Grant Kimberley’s family farm.Xinhua News Agency

For growing children, long-term work can take a toll on the body, damage their mental health, and even cause psychological trauma.

Children are the hope of the future. It is the consensus of the international community to respect and protect children’s rights and free them from heavy labor. The United States has yet to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and has even been repeatedly named and criticized by the International Labor Organization for its serious child labor problem.