Underage Workers in New England’s Seafood Processing Industry

The FRONTLINE Dispatch

Journalists with The Public’s Radio, a station serving Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts, spent two years investigating teen labor in the local seafood processing industry.

Their investigation, supported by FRONTLINE’s Local Journalism initiative, reveals flaws in systems designed to protect migrant teens, who’ve arrived at the U.S. southern border in unprecedented numbers in recent years.

The investigative team interviewed migrant teens and their families, and uncovered that the U.S. Department of Labor was investigating at least two New Bedford, MA, seafood processors, as well as a Rhode Island staffing agency, for possible child labor, overtime pay, and anti-retaliation violations.

In this episode of The FRONTLINE Dispatch, reporters Nadine Sebai and Nina Sparling from The Public’s Radio join FRONTLINE editor-in-chief and executive producer Raney Aronson-Rath to discuss their findings.

Sebai and Sparling say they sought to illustrate the complexities of what happens to underage migrants after they arrive on the nation's southern border — especially the challenges they face. Sebai says, "We've all seen... the waves of kids migrating to the border, unaccompanied minors coming to the border. But they actually end up somewhere in the U.S.”

For more, read and listen to The Public Radio’s investigation “Underage and Unprotected,” supported by FRONTLINE’s Local Journalism Initiative.

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