Tom Harkin: “I turn my attention to another issue that is closely akin to education, an issue I have been working on for a long time…”

“I turn my attention to another issue that is closely akin to education, an issue I have been working on for a long time, one which has come to the front now because of all the negotiations going on. That is the issue of child labor. In January of this year, my staff, Rosemary Gutierrez, and I traveled to Nepal, Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan to look at the issue of child labor. While we were in Nepal, the exotic city of Katmandu, I met with a young man who had been a former child laborer. He told me about the awful conditions that were in some of these countries, yet the official government line is, there is no child labor; it is prohibited. On a Sunday evening, right after it got dark, about dusk, we got into an unmarked car--the former child laborer, a driver, my staff person, and I--and drove to the outskirts of Katmandu to a carpet factory. It was thought by my host, this young man who had been a former child laborer, that the owner of the factory was not going to be there. He kind of knew the guard at the gate and said we could get through. So we drove out to the outskirts. Sure enough, there was a gate, there was a wire fence. The guard let us through. We went up, and the young man talked to him in Nepalese, since I don't speak Nepalese, and we were let through. What was on the outside of the gate before we entered? This sign right here, in Nepalese and in English. This is the sign; I took this picture with my camera.…”