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.”
