Some of the children sharpened long knives and machetes for their dangerous toil--cutting, piling and hauling the long, leathery leaves of the plant that will become, among other things, rugs, rope and handbags to be sold in the United States and elsewhere. The sharp blades and processing machines used in the fields have left many children and their parents with punctured eyeballs, missing fingers, scarred legs and amputated arms.

"I saw a boy lose his hand," said Valdinei dos Santos Goncalves, 14, who has worked on sisal farms since he was 8. "He had it one minute, and then he didn't have it the next. He was working with the [sisal shredder]. He was crying a lot, and he was bleeding--on his clothes, on the ground. I think it was his left hand."

The youths working here are among an estimated 250 million child laborers between ages 5 and 14 worldwide, most of whom toil in fields and factories in developing countries, and whose plight is spurring new controversy as the global economy becomes increasingly interconnected.

President Clinton said during the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in December that the group should consider sanctioning member countries that use the most severe forms of child labor. Those include slavery, prostitution and any work "which is likely to harm the health, safety, or morals of children," according to a United Nations treaty.

But developing countries led by Brazil, India and Egypt quickly rejected the idea. They accused Clinton of using moralistic language to cloak protectionist policies aimed at restricting imports from Third World countries.

Clinton's suggestion of sanctions "must be seen in the context of the United States, in the realm of the WTO, attempting to act against strong competitors, such as Brazil," Luiz Felipe Lampreia, Brazil's foreign minister, said at the time.

The dispute has been gathering force for some time. Child labor issues began attracting attention in the United States during the 1990s, with reports focusing on U.S. industries that rely heavily on child labor overseas in agriculture, apparel, sporting goods, carpets and rugs. New tales cropped up regularly of famous personalities or giant corporations--Kathie Lee Gifford, Michael Jordan and Nike, the Gap--exploiting child labor and producing goods in wretched working conditions.

Child labor is widespread. Egyptian kids harvest cotton, Indians knit rugs, and Kenyans pick coffee beans. They rarely make more than $1 a day.

Many developing nations, including Brazil, have moved to reduce child labor, and Clinton praised those efforts. But the countries say worldwide economic competition makes it difficult to eliminate child labor altogether. Take away work by children, they say, and production costs rise, and then companies flee to countries where labor costs are cheaper.

Developing countries produce only a small portion of world exports, however, and the World Bank estimates that less than 5 percent of their child laborers are employed in export industries. So the competition argument does not fully answer the question: Why, when the world as a whole is growing richer, more democratic and more educated, does child labor continue to thrive in the developing world?

Labor experts and activists say child labor is an outgrowth of profound poverty, entrenched cultural habits and decades of government neglect. It is born of a lack of education for children and a paucity of decent jobs for their parents--many of whom missed school because they began working long before puberty.

Here in this poverty-wrecked pocket of northeastern Brazil, it is rare to find a parent who did not start working before age 8. That is when Jose Francisco de Jesus, the father of Valdinei, began working in sisal, and he has never done anything else. De Jesus, 56, lives in a tiny brick house with gaps in the roof and no electricity or indoor plumbing or telephone. His family owns no livestock. He often cannot afford to buy medicine for his eight children. He earns $7.50 a week. His children each make up to $1.50 per week.

"It's an issue of socioeconomic development, better income distribution, social mobilization," said Beatriz Cunha, Brazil's director of the United Nations' International Program for the Elimination of Child Labor, or Ipec. "We can't just say, 'This is a problem of lack of education or health or social assistance.' We have to develop a number of integrated approaches."

Brazil has had anti-child labor laws on its books since 1891. But corporations, the government and society have ignored them. Children, ages 7 to 14, have ended up working in virtually every industry, from shoemaking to charcoal production to fruit-picking. By 1996, 3.3 million Brazilian youngsters were working.

That same year, international pressure compelled the government of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso to create an anti-child labor initiative, the centerpiece of which is a program that pays parents to send their children to school.

Today, the number of Brazil's child workers has fallen to 2.5 million. Yet many Brazilians privately scorn efforts to end child labor. They note that even the United States once battled this problem and that, especially in rural areas, some American children are no strangers to 12-hour workdays.

"When we talk about child labor, we're talking about kids doing jobs dangerous to their health," said Pharis Harvey, executive director of the International Labor Rights Fund, a watchdog group in Washington. "A lot of people are confusing socialization with the exploitation of children."

In Brazil, child labor is so ingrained that parents rarely criticize the government for not providing better jobs or adequate schooling. Instead, they echo parents such as de Jesus, who watched the other day as six of his children cut and carried sisal, their eyes and ears clogged with hordes of flies. The children range in age from 10 to 15.

De Jesus, who has a broad smile and an easy manner, said he does not feel exploited by the sisal farm owner who employs his children.

"Just the opposite," said the father. "I'm grateful. I feel obligated to him. . . . If my children didn't work with me, we would have to go hungry."

In Povoado de Jose Valerio, home to 85 families, a lot of people are living meal to meal. The village, 120 miles west of Salvador, the capital of Bahia state, is considered part of greater Teofilandia, which has 20,000 people.

It is a region where people's lives are as harsh as the landscape. Lack of rain has left acres and acres of parched fields. Trees are feeble, with brittle, bare branches.

The annual per capita income in Teofilandia and its surrounding villages is roughly $140, compared with about $4,800 nationally. Its unemployment rate tops 60 percent. Illiteracy hovers at 70 percent.

Like Povoado de Jose Valerio, most of the villages know no modern conveniences. The area also has suffered from spectacular mismanagement. The only school in Povoado de Jose Valerio remained shuttered for four years during the 1990s because the Teofilandia government did not pay the teachers.

The area's addiction to sisal has allowed few people to earn an education and develop the skills to seek better opportunities. Today many children who do go to school attend only sporadically because their parents make them work when money is especially tight.

"The problem is lack of jobs," said Teofilandia Mayor Carlos de Oliveira, who was not in charge when the municipality closed the school. "If you have industry, you can have jobs, and if people have jobs, they're able to survive."

Survival is what most children here say they aspire to. Many said they plan to cut sisal when they grow up. Few say that they mind the exhausting work.

Jose Almeida Pereira, 14, is an exception. The short, skinny teenager, five of whose siblings also work, has worked since he was 8. Today he is in the third grade. He does not know the days of the week. He cannot add. He reads "a little."

"I like going to school, because in school I can rest," he said. "I get headaches from working with the sisal. My arms and legs ache, too. It's a lot of walking."

Pereira's mother, Nilda Almeida, who has eight children, said that she hopes to enroll Jose into the school scholarship program when it arrives here. The program offers parents between $12.50 and $25 per child per month if the youngster regularly attends school.

The nationwide initiative started with 3,710 participants in 1996 and has 362,000 today. Since 1996 the government also has raised the minimum working age to 16 and is beefing up labor inspections, but the scholarship effort has been by far its most effective weapon against child labor.

"It's not a solution, but it's a good start," said Glaubert Santos, who directs the government's efforts to end child labor. "We still have to make sure families have ways to earn steady income--and that means creating jobs."

In the neighboring state of Pernambuco, where the scholarship program is popular, children such as Jose Wilson Ferreira are grateful.

Ferreira, 12, had worked since he was 5--shining shoes, pushing a food cart, selling grapes--seven days a week, 10 hours a day.

Now, he goes to school every day. He dreams of joining the armed forces. He relishes weekends.

"On the weekends now, I rest," he said. "I don't have to wake up early anymore."

A Look at Child Labor

More than 250 million children ages 5 to 14 from poor families in developing nations work.

Child labor*

India 20 to 50 million

Bangladesh 6.6 million

Peru 4 million

Pakistan 3.3 million

Brazil 2.5 million

Egypt 2 million

Philippines 1.8 million

Turkey 1.5 million

Mexico 1.1 million

Kenya 1 million

Guatemala 900,000

South Africa 200,000

Geographic distribution*

Asia 56%

Africa 32%

Latin America and the Caribbean 7%

Europe and North America 5%

What child laborers do

Agriculture, fishing, forestry, hunting 70%

Manufacturing 8%

Wholesale and retail 8%

Community, social and personal services 7%

Transport, storage and communications 4%

Construction 2%

Mining and quarrying 1%

*Based on estimates from UNICEF, United Nations' International Labor Organization, Human Rights Watch, U.S. Department of Labor

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Labor report

© 2000 The Washington Post Company

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