[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 87 (Friday, July 1, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 1, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
           INTRODUCTION OF CHILD LABOR DETERRENCE ACT OF 1994

                                 ______


                       HON. GEORGE E. BROWN, JR.

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 30, 1994

  Mr. BROWN of California. Mr. Speaker, last year, Senator Tom Harkin 
and I introduced companion versions of legislation to ban the 
importation of products which are made, whole or in part, by children 
who are under the age of 15 and who are employed in either industry or 
mining. That legislation is H.R. 1397 and S. 616 and it is referred to 
as the Child Labor Deterrence Act of 1993. It has met with growing 
bipartisan support in both Houses of the Congress. It already has 25 
House cosponsors and 16 Senate cosponsors.
  Equally important, the potential for this legislation to achieve 
positive results can already be seen in several foreign countries. It 
has prompted some national governments and selected industries in 
developing countries to take the first tentative steps toward 
enforcement of national child labor laws and to address the most 
egregious forms of exploitation of children in the workplace such as 
bonded child labor in south Asia.
  Specifically, the Philippine Government has introduced legislation to 
raise the minimum age for work.
  In Bangladesh, the prospect of the enactment of this legislation--
fostered by a dramatic TV expose of young children working in garment 
factories making apparel that the Wal-Mart stores sold in America--has 
prompted pledges from the garment industry to provide schooling for 
those children.
  In India, some carpet producers and exporters are coming forward to 
link up with nongovernmental organizations to establish credible means 
for ensuring that the hand-knotted carpets they market are not made by 
children. Furthermore, mass marches of antichild labor forces are 
building pressure on that government for national policies that meet 
the needs of impoverished families, thereby reducing an important 
inducement for the commercial exploitation of children in the 
workplace.
  Last year the labor supplemental agreement to NAFTA put in place the 
provisions for possible sanctions to be invoked in cases involving 
child labor in the production of goods for export.
  At the same time, other developed countries are witnessing a similar 
outcry against child labor imports. Last summer the European parliament 
passed a resolution calling upon the European commission to carry out 
an investigation into community imports of products manufactured in 
rehabilitation camps in China and products resulting from children's 
work. They also called upon the European commission to propose that the 
European council put a stop to such imports.
  Very soon Frau Brigitte Adler, a Social Democratic Party [SPD] member 
of the German Bundestag, will introduce counterpart legislation to our 
bill. It is expected to receiving the backing of more than 120 German 
Parliamentarians from all across the political spectrum.
  Furthermore, a coalition of German, French, Belgian, and Dutch 
Parliamentarians are planning to push similar legislation for adoption 
in the European union yet this year.
  While awaiting coordinated governmental action, concerned consumers 
are taking matters into their own hands to ferret out imports made by 
child labor and to mount consumer education campaigns and boycotts 
against the purchase of such items. Again, in Germany, a strong 
consumer boycott against the purchase of imported hand-knotted carpets 
made by children is in full swing. Partially in response, the German 
Association of Carpet Importers has voluntarily committed themselves to 
paying at least a 2-percent surcharge on the value of every carpet they 
import and those funds are being set aside for the construction of 
schools and stipends and to meet other basic human needs of children 
who are freed from the looms in south Asia.
  In stark contrast, the oriental rug importers in the United States so 
far have declined to support this legislation or to dip into their own 
great wealth to replace the children of the looms with skilled adult 
artisans who could be paid livable wages. Unlike their German 
counterparts, American rug importers appear unwilling to contribute one 
penny from their own profits to help finance positive alternatives for 
these children who work in virtual slavery.
  I also want to call the attention of my colleagues to a growing 
international consensus to curb trade in child labor products.
  Last fall, the Dutch economist and Nobel Laureate Jan Tinbergen 
convened an unprecedented seminar in Amsterdam on child labor and the 
exploitation of children worldwide. The testimony presented by child 
welfare advocates from Asia, Latin America, and Africa galvanized the 
Nobel laureates into action.
  On January 1, 1994, 76 distinguished Nobel laureates, including Lech 
Walesa, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Mikhail Gorbachev, and many notable 
economists, issued a New Year's Day appeal for action to curb child 
labor and other forms of child exploitation. I ask that the full text 
of their message be reprinted following this statement. But I 
especially want my colleagues to note that among the actions cited is a 
call for the west to consider making economic support for countries 
dependent upon their commitment to the elimination of child 
exploitation.
  I have been in close communication with the Nobel laureates and we 
are cooperating closely on both legislative and nonlegislative measures 
to curb exploitation of children in the workplace around the world.
  At an unprecedented public hearing in the United States on 
international child labor that was convened at the U.S. Labor 
Department just over 2 months ago, 112 Nobel laureates, now including 
Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela, and Rigoberta Menchu, the Dalai Lama, 
and others, announced their plans to link the work of their newly 
established organization, Childright Worldwide, with legislative and 
nonlegislative initiatives to stop child exploitation. More 
specifically, they expressed a strong desire to work with us on this 
legislation to facilitate its refinement, enactment, and enforcement.
  I am very pleased to join with Senator Harkin today in introducing 
the Child Labor Deterrence Act of 1994. This bill retains the key 
provisions of the earlier version we sponsored last year. It would 
require the U.S. Secretary of Labor to compile and maintain a list of 
industries in foreign countries that use child labor in the production 
of exports to the United States and elsewhere. Once the Secretary of 
Labor identifies a foreign industry, the U.S. Treasury Secretary is 
instructed to prohibit the importation of such products from an 
identified industry. However, the import ban would not apply if a 
foreign exporter and his/her corresponding U.S. importer submit to 
regular child labor inspections, sign certificates of origin, and take 
other reasonable steps to ensure that the products imported from 
identified foreign industries are not products of child labor. In 
addition, the President is urged to seek an agreement with other 
Governments to secure an international ban on trade in products made by 
child labor.
  But this bill improves upon the earlier version in at least a couple 
of ways.
  First, it builds upon some very promising developments that should 
make it easier to enforce this law, thus rewarding socially responsible 
businessmen in the marketplace at the expense of unscrupulous or 
uncaring exporters and importers.
  We should link up and encourage those leaders inside and outside of 
government in developing countries who want to work with us to expand 
socially responsible trade that benefits workers and consumers in 
developing and developed countries alike.
  For example, in India face-to-face negotiations between 
nongovernmental organizations dedicated to the eradication of child 
labor and carpet exporters have yielded an unprecedented system called 
the rugmark initiative which offers a credible means for 
inspecting looms and labeling those hand-knotted carpets which are made 
for export free of child labor. This means that for the first time U.S. 
importers with confidence could reasonably be expected to require that 
their foreign suppliers provided them only with carpets produced and 
reliably labeled to be free of child labor. Accordingly, our 
legislation encourages exporters and importers to take the reasonable 
step of making full use of such inspection and labeling systems as they 
become available on the ground in foreign countries which host 
industries identified with egregious child labor problems.

  Second, it is entirely fitting and proper that the U.S. contribute 
financially to positive alternatives for the development of the 
children freed from the looms and other exploitative working 
conditions. Fortunately, the International Labor Organization [ILO] and 
UNICEF, in south Asia especially, are taking the lead in this regard. 
Our bill authorizes U.S. contributions to support these long overdue 
efforts.
  We stand ready to listen to and respond to disparate points of view 
about ways in which to further improve this legislation in timely 
fashion. But let there be no doubt that we are firmly resolved to see 
it through to enactment. It is clear to us that the specter of the 
possible loss of access to the lucrative U.S. market via enactment of 
this legislation is what has prompted traffickers in child labor 
exports inside and outside of government circles to sit up and take 
notice. We will not rest until real economic incentives are put in 
place for foreign governments to seriously enforce their own child 
labor laws and for exporters and importers to stop enriching themselves 
from the toil and suffering of defenseless children.

                                                    Amsterdam,

                                                  January 1, 1994.
       Dear Friends: At this time of the year, we want to draw 
     your attention to the many children on this earth who will 
     not, and probably never will, enjoy celebrating holidays. For 
     they are, in a very real sense, little slaves.
       Last year we conducted a hearing on child labour and the 
     exploitation of children world-wide. We invited the foremost 
     experts from Asia, Latin America and Africa to testify on 
     this global issue before a panel of Nobel Laureates. The 
     facts they presented were shocking to us all.
       Over two hundred million children--equivalent to the total 
     population of Britain, France, Germany and the Netherlands--
     are forced to work daily like adults. They are robbed of 
     their childhood, of education, of health, of play and the 
     chance of a human future.
       Children are a cheap workforce. They always have been. They 
     work in the family, in fields and in factories--even in many 
     parts of Europe to this day, despite a century of legislation 
     banning the practice. International conventions outlaw child 
     labour, and most countries have laws setting a minimum 
     working age, usually about 15 years. But it is one thing to 
     pass a law, another to enforce it.
       It is not for the industrialized world to sit in judgement 
     on the developing world or other cultures. In many cases, the 
     child's contribution to the family income is essential to his 
     or her survival. In many more, the occupational skills 
     acquired will ensure future work. But, increasingly, the 
     exploitation of child work is at too high a cost--rendering 
     their future worthless.
       That's one reason why 154 countries have signed the UN 
     Convention on the Rights of the Child. It seeks to determine 
     a child's essential rights, which transcend culture and 
     economic need. Along with health, education and a decent 
     standard of living, it cites protection and respect, freedom 
     of expression and movement above all the opportunity to 
     develop to the full each child's personality and talents. 
     Well regulated work training does not preclude those 
     objectives, exploitative employment over long hours in 
     unhealthy conditions does.
       For millions of children throughout Asia, Latin America and 
     Africa, many as young as five, life offers nothing but the 
     endless round of toil on the streets and in sweatshops. As 
     poor countries try to pay their debts by chasing export 
     orders, the use and abuse of cheap labour to keep down costs 
     becomes systematic. This in turn stores up trouble for those 
     countries, leaving adult labour unemployed or under-employed, 
     and under-developing the labour potential for the future: the 
     children, burnt out before they are grown. Far from 
     disappearing, the problem seems to be worsening, and is now 
     apparently spreading in Eastern Europe and the countries of 
     the former Soviet Union.
       Data here is hard to come by, as with the other intolerable 
     civil of child exploitation: prostitution. We live in a world 
     where millions of children, as young as six or seven, are 
     forced to sell their bodies, often to Western tourists.
       Faced with such colossal misery, what can we do? What can 
     the world do? In the first place, the world should come to 
     know, as we had to learn, that it allows so many of its 
     children to live in such miserable and hopeless conditions. 
     To this end, an international organization that focuses and 
     reports on child labour and child exploitation, modelled on 
     Amnesty International, would be of great value. Certainly we, 
     undersigned Nobel Laureates, will support such an 
     organization and any initiative to stop child exploitation.
       Secondly, global organizations such as the United Nations, 
     UNICEF, UNESCO, ILO, WHO, the IMF and the World Bank should 
     be encouraged persistently to condemn child exploitation 
     wherever it occurs in the world. So should associations of 
     interest like the European Union and the Commonwealth, and 
     individual nation states. We need to appeal to the humanity 
     of political leaders and opinion formers.
       Thirdly, if all else fails, the West could make economic 
     support for countries dependent upon their commitment to the 
     elimination of child exploitation. This could work at every 
     level. Businesses can refuse to deal with companies which 
     exploit children, and should be pressurized to do so by 
     shareholders. Consumers can refuse to buy cheap shoes, 
     garments, carpets and other products prone to child 
     exploitation, unless it is reliably attested that no children 
     were involved in their production.
       Respect for the laws of the countries involved and for 
     their people will usually ensure the best for their children. 
     Traders exploiting dependent suppliers, just like tourists 
     exploiting child prostitutes, should be held answerable in 
     their own countries' courts. No-one believes that the world-
     wide problem of child exploitation can be solved overnight. 
     But with a cooperative, coordinated approach like this there 
     is a glimmer of hope of these children--with your support.
       We wish you happy holidays and a joyfull, healthy New Year. 
     We hope you will support our aim that all the children 
     enslaved ad exploited in the world at this moment will one 
     day be able to go to school, to celebrate holidays and to 
     enjoy many future Happy New Years.
       Sidney Altman, Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
       Oscar Arias Sanchez, Nobel Prize for Peace.
       Kenneth J. Arrow, Nobel Prize for Economics.
       Julius Axelrod, Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
       Georg Bednorz, Nobel Prize for Physics.
       Baruj Benacerraf, Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
       J. Michael Bishop, Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
       Nicolaas Bloembergen, Nobel Prize for Physics.
       Baruch S. Blumberg, Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
       Herbert C. Brown, Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
       Adolf Butenandt, Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
       Camilo Jose Cela, Nobel Prize for Literature.
       Subramanyan Chandrasekhnr, Nobel Prize for Physics.
       Stanley Cohen, Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
       Elias J. Corey, Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
       Gerard Debreu, Nobel Prize of Economics.
       Johann Deisenhofer, Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
       Christian Je Duve, Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine,
       Richard R. Ernst, Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
       William A. Fowler, Nobel Prize for Physics.
       Kenlchi Fukui, Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
       Mikhail S. Gorbachev, Nobel Prize for Peace.
       Dudley Herschbach, Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
       Gerhard Herzberg, Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
       Dorothy Hodgkin, Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
       Roald Hoffmann, Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
       David H. Hubel, Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
       Francois Jacob, Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
       Jerome Karle, Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
       Henry W. Kendall, Nobel Prize for Physics.
       Lawrence R. Klein, Nobel Prize for Economics.
       Klaus von Klitzing, Nobel Prize for Physics.
       Leon M. Lederman, Nobel Prize for Physics.
       Yuan T. Lee, Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
       Jean-Marie Lehn, Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
       Wassily Leontief, Nobel Prize for Economics.
       Rita Levi-Montalcini, Nobel Prize for Physiology or 
     Medicine.
       Mairead Maguire, Nobel Prize for Peace.
       James Meade, Nobel Prize for Economics.
       Simon van der Meer, Nobel Prize for Physics.
       Cesar Milstein, Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
       Franco Modigliani, Nobel Prize for Economics.
       Nevill Matt, Nobel Prize for Physics.
       Joseph E. Murray, Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
       Erwin Neher, Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
       George H. Palade, Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
       Linus Pauling, Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1954), Nobel 
     Prize for Peace (1962).
       Adolfo Perez Esguivel, Nobel Prize for Peace.
       Max Ferdinand Perutz, Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
       Vladimir Prelog, Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
       Ilya Prigogine, Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
       Burton Richter, Nobel Prize for Physics.
       Richard Roberts, Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
       Heinrich Rehrer, Nobel Prize for Physics.
       Adbus Salam, Nobel Prize for Physics.
       Paul A. Samuelson, Nobel Prize for Economics.
       Frederick Sanger, Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1958 and 
     1980).
       Arthur L. Schawlow, Nobel Prize for Physics.
       Glenn T. Scaborg, Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
       Phillip A. Sharp, Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
       William F. Sharpe, Nobel Prize for Economics.
       Kai Sieghahn, Nobel Prize for Physics.
       Herbert A. Simon, Nobel Prize for Economics.
       Robert M. Solow, Nobel Prize for Economics.
       Roger W. Sperry, Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
       Jack Steinberger, Nobel Prize for Physics.
       Howard M. Tenin, Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
       Jan Tinbergen, Nobel Prize for Economics.
       James Tobin, Nobel Prize for Economics.
       Susumu Tonegawn, Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
       Desmond Tutu, Nobel Prize for Peace.
       Unicef (James P. Grant), Nobel Prize for Peace.
       John Vane, Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
       George Wald, Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
       Lech Walesa, Nobel Prize for Peace.
       Maurice Willons, Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
       Since January 12 more Laureates, including Nelson Mandela 
     and Mother Theresa, have joined this initiative that has been 
     launched by the 90-year-old Laureate Jan Tinbergen.

                          ____________________