Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, my amendment sets aside $250,000, which in the totality of this budget is very, very small, for the FDA to develop labeling requirements indicating that no child slave labor was used in the growing and harvesting of cocoa. Forty-three percent of the world's cocoa beans come from small scattered farms in the Ivory Coast. The beans are prized for their quality and abundance. In the first 3 months of 2001, more than 47,300 tons of them were shipped to the United States to be processed by U.S. cocoa processors. There are more than 600,000 small farms and no corporate or government agency in the Ivory Coast is monitoring them for slave trade. The United Nations estimates that approximately 200,000 slaves are working in various trades in West Africa and the State Department has estimated that about 15,000 children between the ages of 9 and 12 have been sold into forced labor in northern Ivory Coast in recent years. Let me repeat that. The State Department has estimated that about 15,000 children between the ages of 9 and 12 have been sold into forced labor in northern Ivory Coast in recent years.”