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Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
For more information call: (202) 219-6373X164
A grant to help abolish child labor in the Bangladesh
garment industry was awarded today by the U.S. Labor Department. The
department's Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) gave $867,000 to the
U.N.-affiliated International Labor Organization (ILO). This is one of five
projects ILAB is funding under a $2.1 million grant to the ILO's International
Program for the Elimination of Child Labor. Other projects are in Thailand,
Africa, Brazil and the Phillippines. The funds were provided in the fiscal year
1995 Labor Department appropriation.
Deputy Under Secretary of Labor Jack Otero, head of ILAB,
said, "The Bangladesh experiment is hugely important. It is the first
initiative aimed at completely eliminating child labor in an entire industrial
sector. We hope to show that if it is possible to eliminate the exploitation of
children in one sector, we can do it in others as well. We still must await the
results before declaring success, but we are committed to the effort."
The ILAB-ILO project in Bangladesh aims at getting
children out of the workplace and into the schoolroom. Bangladesh is a major
source of garments for the U.S. market. With the support of ILAB and the
American embassy in Bangladesh, the ILO and UNICEF negotiated an historic
agreement with the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association
to remove children from the garment factories and place the former child
laborers in school programs. Under that agreement, ILAB, through the ILO, will
provide technical and financial assistance on the development of an inspection
and verification system to ensure that children are not working in the garment
factories. Teams of independent inspectors will monitor the factories.
ILAB has been actively involved in international child
labor since 1993. At that time, Congress directed the secretary of labor to
conduct a study identifying foreign industries and host countries that use
child labor in the production of goods imported into the United States. ILAB
published its first report in 1994, "By the Sweat and Toil of Children (Volume
I): The Use of Child Labor in American Imports," which focused on children in
the mining and manufacturing industries. Volume II, which covers agricultural
imports and forced and bonded child labor, was published in September 1995. And
most recently in April, the agency published "Forced Labor: The Prostitution of
Children."
Copies of the reports are available by contacting the
International Child Labor Study, Bureau of International Labor Affairs, U.S.
Department of Labor, Room S-1308, 200 Constitution Ave., NW, Washington, DC
20210, voice phone (202) 208-4843, fax (202) 219-4923.
Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
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