UK Media Watch prompts correction to Human Rights Watch photo illustrating child labor report

Earlier today, we posted about a correction prompted by our office to a misleading photo used by The Telegraph to illustrate their story on a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report on the alleged use of Palestinian child labor by Israeli farms in the Jordan Valley.
As we noted, both The Telegraph and HRW used the same photo, one which most readers would assume depicted a Palestinian child laborer being illegally employed by an Israeli farm. However, the photo (a Reuters photo from 2010) actually depicts a Palestinian child laborer being illegally employed by a Palestinian owned farm.
Our office also contacted HRW yesterday to alert them about the error and, just a few minutes ago, we learned that HRW similarly changed their photo.  (HRW informed us that their office had reached out to The Telegraph to inform them of the error after receiving our email.)
Here’s the original HRW photo illustrating their 74 page report.
hrw
Now, here’s the new photo.
hrw
HRW issued this correction:
corex
The caption for the new photo, on the last page of the report, notes that the image depicts “Palestinian laborers, including a 16-year-old, head out to work at a farm on an Israeli settlement in the West Bank…© 2015 Matt Ford for Human Rights Watch”. However, it’s important to stress that, per HRW’s own report, 16 year olds are legally permitted to work. The International Labor Organization (ILO) Conventions, which Israel is party to, reportedly only prohibits children under 18 from performing “hazardous” work. It’s of course entirely unclear what kind of farm work the Palestinians depicted in the new photo are engaged in.
Nonetheless, we commend HRW for replacing the original highly misleading photo.

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