Sixty thousand children aged between 7 and 13 work in the sugar cane fields of the Zona da Mata in the north east of Brazil. Just under half of them work over 44 hours a week, and nearly two thirds have suffered accidents, often with the heavy scythes.

A local research institute, the Centro Josue de Castro, with money from the Save the Children Fund, has just carried out the most thorough survey ever of the conditions of the child cane cutters. Nearly half of the children are …