They Sell Candy Instead of Going to School. New York Isn’t Stopping Them.
The New York Times
Letting children work in the train system during school hours breaks several laws and rules. But a series of agencies said it was not their place to stop the practice.
On a subway platform in the Bronx recently, a girl in a puffer coat strolled past passengers with a basket of M&M’s, Kit Kats and Trident gum slung across her shoulder. She looked to be 7 or 8.
One rider captured her on a video posted on X, calling out, “No parent, no parent, where the parent at?” as she walked by.
Of all the manifestations of human misery that the two-year-old migrant crisis has brought to New York City, few trouble the conscience more than the sight of children selling candy on the subway — sometimes during school hours, sometimes accompanied by parents, sometimes not.
On trains and on social media, New Yorkers have asked: Isn’t this child labor? Is it illegal? Shouldn’t someone be doing something to help these children?
Children between the ages of 6 and 17 are required to be in school. Children under 14 are not allowed to do most jobs. You can’t sell merchandise in the transit system without a permit.
But whose job is it to do something? Recent queries to seven city and state agencies found the consensus to be “not mine.”
