Harkin welcomes Department of Labor reports on global child labor

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) applauded the U.S. Department of Labor’s release of two new reports on global child labor issues Wednesday.

“With these reports, the Labor Department continues to shine the light on child labor around the globe,” Harkin said in a statement released Wednesday. “These reports rank countries that are making strides to eliminate this forced labor and draw attention to products that may be made through child labor, which U.S. federal agencies should not procure.”

The reports list goods that the Bureau of International Labor Affairs believes are produced by forced labor or child labor, as well as products federal contractors must make a good-faith effort to determine whether forced or indentured child labor was used to produce. The reports also contain findings on the incidence of child labor in certain U.S. trade-beneficiary countries.

Harkin, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has championed legislation to curb child labor and said the Labor Department has shown its dedication to the issue as well.

“They are another tool in reaching our goal of eliminating the worst forms of child labor across the globe,” Harkin said. “I am pleased to join Secretary [Hilda] Solis in releasing these reports and I thank her and her dedicated team for their continued efforts to root out child labor wherever it exists.”

The report made recommendations to 144 countries concerning their efforts to combat the worst forms of child labor and added four new goods and three new countries, for totals of 134 goods from 74 countries, on the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act list.

The new goods added to the list are baked goods, beef, fish and thread/yarn. The countries added to the list in 2012 are South Sudan, Suriname and Vietnam.

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