On September 30, in León Rougés, a 14-year-old adolescent was driving an agricultural machine with a sugarcane harrow for the first time. The outcome was the death of a 19-year-old young man. The case was filed as involuntary manslaughter. The adolescent was placed at the disposal of the Juvenile Justice system.

The news spread as an individual tragedy. And it is one. But it is also a reflection of something that data on child and adolescent labor in rural areas of Tucumán (and many other provinces) has been showing persistently.

In 2025, DYA Argentina surveyed 587 girls, boys and adolescents between 11 and 17 years old in five secondary schools in the departments of Famaillá and Monteros, the department to which León Rougés belongs. 69.7% had worked during the week prior to the survey. 55.9% did so for the market, and among them, almost one in ten participated in activities related to cutting, cleaning or loading agricultural harvests. They were working while going to school.

These adolescents do not work because they want to. They work because their families need it, because rural work has been part of the domestic economy for generations, and because the State does not always reach them with policies that offer other possibilities. Beyond individual responsibilities, the case raises the question of what structural conditions place 14-year-old adolescents in work situations for which they are not prepared.

Child and adolescent labor in rural contexts has documented consequences for educational trajectories, health and development. It also has consequences for safety, their own and others', when children and adolescents carry out tasks for which they lack training, maturity or legal protection.

What happened in León Rougés is a tragedy. And it is also a signal that should not be lost in the news cycle. In Argentina, work is prohibited for those under 16 years of age and there is a list of tasks prohibited for adolescents that has not been updated since 2016. That regulatory framework, combined with the scarcity of real opportunities for training, recreation and support in rural areas, is insufficient to protect those who are already working in high-risk activities well before reaching that age.

Before pointing to the 14-year-old adolescent, it is worth asking who assigned him that task, who put him behind the wheel and who should have ensured that it did not happen. Responsibility for child and adolescent labor always involves adults, institutions and decisions that go beyond the children themselves. Argentina needs effective protection policies that support families, strengthen educational trajectories and ensure that regulatory frameworks match the reality that the data shows.

DYA Argentina has been working for nine years in rural schools and communities in Tucumán, accompanying adolescents and their families through the Punto Joven and Child Care Center programs.