Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

ILAB Press Release: Labor Department Funds Grant On Eradication of Child Labor [05/30/1996]

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.