Byron Dorgan: “in this legislation we have doubled the amount of funding to $10 million that the Customs Service would have to combat…”

“in this legislation we have doubled the amount of funding to $10 million that the Customs Service would have to combat the issue of forced child labor practices. All of us understand what is happening with respect to child labor around the world. It is not fair competition. It is not fair for people to use child labor and ship their products to our marketplace in the United States and call it fair trade. We have had testimony at hearings in the Senate in years past of young children, 8, 10, 12 years old, working in carpet factories in some parts of the world, in which those who run the carpet factories have actually taken gunpowder and burned the fingers of these young children. They burn the fingertips of the children in order to create burn scars so that the children who use needles to work on these carpets and rugs will not injure themselves. It won't hurt because now they are scarred and burned from these deliberate burns caused by their employers. Is that something we want to allow to happen in this world? I don't think so. Do we want to buy from people making products by employing 10- and 12-year-old kids whose fingers they have burned so they can sew rugs and ship them to America to be bought in Pittsburgh, Fargo, Minneapolis, and other cities? No. It is not the right thing. So we double the amount of money to deal with child labor.”