[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 35 (Friday, March 5, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2366-S2368]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. GRASSLEY (for himself and Mr. Kerrey):
  S. 553. A bill to provide additional trade benefits to countries that 
comply with the provisions of the ILO Convention; to the Committee on 
Finance.


             the international child welfare protection act

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I rise today, on behalf of myself and 
Senator Kerrey, to introduce legislation that will chart a new United 
States approach to the terrible problem of child exploitation in 
overseas labor markets.
  This legislation, the International Child Welfare Protection Act, 
will target new, additional trade benefits to countries that comply 
with the provisions of the International Labor Organization's 
Convention Number 138 concerning the Minimum Age for Admission to 
Employment, also known as the Minimum Age Convention.

[[Page S2367]]

  The aim of the Minimum Age Convention is to abolish child labor 
throughout the world by establishing a minimum age at which children 
may be employed.
  Our legislation will do two things:
  It will give the President the authority to grant a country that 
complies with the Minimum Age Convention up to a fifty-percent tariff 
rate cut on items produced in that country that would not otherwise be 
eligible for preferential tariff rates.
  It will also permit the President to waive current limitations on the 
amounts of additional goods that countries complying with the Minimum 
Age Convention may export to the United States. If, in the unlikely 
event the President finds that domestic industries are hurt because of 
these special, targeted trade benefits, the President also has the 
authority to suspend, limit, or withdraw the benefits.
  This legislation is important for three reasons.
  First, it is a tragic fact that child labor is rampant in many places 
in the world, despite more laws aimed at stopping this inhumane 
practice. International Labor Organization statistics show that between 
100 million and 200 million children worldwide are engaged in providing 
goods and services. Ninety-five percent of these children, according to 
the ILO, work in developing countries. Why are children pressed into 
service as low-paid or un-paid workers? Because, according to the ILO, 
children are ``generally less demanding, more obedient, and less likely 
to object to their treatment or conditions of work.'' We must all do 
what we can to stop this unconscionable practice.
  The second reason we need this legislation is because it is clear 
that regulation and enforcement alone will not work. Incentives are 
needed as well. The reason that it is so tough to enforce child labor 
standards is that it is often very difficult to trace specific products 
to specific plants in specific countries. The Department of Labor's 
Bureau of International Labor Affairs says that quantifying the extent 
of child labor in a particular country's export industry ``can seldom 
be done with specificity.'' If you can't even trace the goods or 
services with certainty, you can't expect enforcement alone to be the 
answer.
  Finally, we need this legislation because even though the ILO Minimum 
Age Convention was adopted in 1973, only twenty-one developing country 
member states out of 173 ILO member states have ratified the Convention 
to stop child labor. Out of the twenty-one developing country member 
states that have ratified the Convention, none are from Asia, where 
over half of all working children are to be found. If even one 
additional ILO member state ratifies the Convention because of the 
trade incentives this legislation offers, we have achieved a great 
deal.
  I encourage all my colleagues to join me in this effort.
  Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, earlier this morning, Senator Grassley of 
Iowa introduced a bill that I am a cosponsor of called the 
International Child Welfare Protection Act. I would like to talk about 
that piece of legislation and the objective of that legislation.
  I first became aware of this problem through the efforts of the 
junior Senator from Iowa, Tom Harkin, who came before the Finance 
Committee earlier this year to describe the need to put in our trade 
authority language that would have the negotiators negotiating for the 
purpose of reducing the use of child labor worldwide. I support that. I 
believe the Finance Committee should, when we mark up the normal trade 
authority, put that language in. My hope is that this piece of 
legislation will provide a stimulus to do that.
  This legislation Senator Grassley and I are introducing says that 
economic growth is not just about the bottom line; it is about 
improving human lives.
  I believe this piece of legislation can help do that, Mr. President, 
by taking an incentive-based approach to encourage developing countries 
to do the right thing on child labor. Instead of threatening them with 
access to U.S. markets, this bill says we are going to hold out an 
incentive and offer them U.S. markets at a price they currently can't 
access.
  Now, the action we ask them to take in exchange is to sign the 
International Labor Organization's Convention on Child Labor. That 
convention states that the minimum age for admission to employment 
shall not be less than the age of completion of compulsory schooling: 
either 14, 15, or 16 years of age. For that agreement, we will provide 
preferential access to the world's largest consumer market for 
additional products.
  As I said, I believe this is a good move for the United States to 
make. I think it does provide incentives, for developing nations 
especially, to change their own policies toward child labor. But I also 
think it is important to try to get into our negotiating authority 
language that directs our negotiators to keep child labor in mind and 
try to negotiate for the purpose of reducing the use of child labor in 
nations with which we trade. There should be a connection between trade 
and growing the middle-class worldwide.
  Unfortunately, all too often, trade is measured only in terms of the 
dollars that we export and the dollars we import. For me, it is far 
better and more likely that we will have public support for good, open 
trade policies, if we use trade as a means to an objective, not just to 
produce a better bottom line, not just to produce higher trade numbers, 
but to increase the standard of living of people in the United States 
and to increase the standard of living of people throughout the world.
  The single best way for us to assure access for U.S. goods overseas 
is for us to help the middle class grow in other countries. The only 
way to do that is for people to produce and sell goods that other 
countries want to buy and their own people can afford. It is a very 
difficult process for developing nations. We went through it in the 
United States of America. But for those developing nations to lift 
their middle class, they have to open up their markets and subject 
their businesses to competition. Otherwise, their standard of living 
will constantly be depressed as a result of simply saying that we are 
only going to complete up to the standard of our domestic marketplace.

  When I talk about international trade issues, Mr. President, that is 
the fundamental truth with which I began. Free trade--reducing tariffs 
both here and abroad--will help the middle class to grow. And a 
prosperous and growing middle class has a positive effect on the issues 
we face in trade policy today. Indeed, I argue that it is one of the 
reasons we have struggled to get normal trade authority from the 
President. As least as I see it in Nebraska, there is growing 
skepticism that there is a connection between the standard of living of 
the people who are in the workforce today and the trade policies.
  Many of my citizens have reached a conclusion that there is a 
negative connection, and that free trade policies have depressed their 
standard of living and made it more difficult for them to earn the 
wages they feel they deserve as a consequence of the work they are 
doing every day. We have many problem in trade policies that make it 
difficult for us to convince the American people that free trade is 
unquestionably a good thing. The legislation Senator Grassley and I 
have introduced today says we want to make progress on these issues.
  The International Labor Organization estimates that more than 250 
million children worldwide between the ages of 5 and 14 are obliged to 
work either full-time or part-time in developing countries alone. Many 
work under condition that are debilitating for their physical, moral, 
or emotional well-being.
  Far too many are employed in the fields, rug factories, and 
electronic factories that hope to export products to the United States 
of America. What this bill does is go directly to that desire.
  This bill would immediately cause other countries to say, desire.
  This bill would immediately cause other countries to say, ``We can 
sell products to the U.S. consumers that we could not sell before. All 
we have to do is agree to an internationally recognized standard on 
child labor.''
  If they sign that agreement today, they gain access to American 
markets and American dollars tomorrow. It is an approach that has 
worked for the Europeans. It is an incentive-based, rather than a 
punitive, approach; it is a trade policy that is increasingly 
recognized as a better way to proceed on some of these very difficult 
issues.

[[Page S2368]]

  We want children to be the beneficiaries of economic growth, not the 
engines of it. To us, it is evident that it is self-defeating for 
economic growth to come at the expense of our children.
  This bill is a step in the right direction, and I hope it represents 
to the people I serve that I am willing, in fact, I look forward to 
coming to the table on these very difficult and sticky trade issues 
that have divided us in the past.
  I hope it is seen, as well, as an important first step--but a first 
step only--in reducing the terrible consequences of allowing these 
young children to be used for labor in these developing countries. It 
is a very important issue that Senator Harkin has worked on for years. 
He brought it to the attention of the Finance Committee. I believe the 
committee is responding in a first-step fashion, and I hope they will 
follow this action with further changes in the negotiating language 
that will say to our negotiators: we want you to put child labor at the 
top of your concerns when you are negotiating trade agreement.
                                 ______