The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“ENDING CHILD LABOR IN COCOA AND CHOCOLATE INDUSTRY” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Labor was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H3913 on July 27.
The Department provides billions in unemployment insurance, which peaked around 2011 though spending had declined before the pandemic. Downsizing the Federal Government, a project aimed at lowering taxes and boosting federal efficiency, claimed the Department funds "ineffective and duplicative services" and overregulates the workplace.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
ENDING CHILD LABOR IN COCOA AND CHOCOLATE INDUSTRY
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Quigley) for 5 minutes.
Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Speaker, it is time to discuss the steps we must take to end child labor in the cocoa and chocolate industry.
This issue was brought to my attention by the students at Bell Elementary School in Chicago. Through the guidance of their teacher, Mr. Barash, these students learned the disturbing relationship between child labor and chocolate production.
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During my visit with their class, they shared with me their concern for children who are forced into child labor in this industry. Some of these children are sold to traffickers or farm owners or are abducted only to be taken to cocoa farms for work. Some do not see their families again for years--some never again.
Most children in the industry begin their days before the sun rises and end it long after the sun sets. They are forced to wield dangerous machetes while climbing up and down trees to cut down bean pods. Then they must carry the pods in sacks weighing more than 100 pounds through the forest. If the children don't work fast enough, the farm owners beat them. When they are finally able to rest, they must sleep on wooden planks in small, windowless buildings with little or no access to clean water.
Many of these children will never attend school or receive an education. The passionate elementary schoolers who told me about this made the compelling case that we must eradicate child labor from this industry and make sure these children are no longer forced into dangerous, unlawful working conditions.
How can we justify all of this for the sake of chocolate?
I am not the first Member of this body to be concerned about these practices. This fight was first taken up in Congress by former Representative Eliot Engel of New York who worked to establish a labeling standard to indicate on chocolate products that no child labor had been used in its production.
While this effort did not succeed, he was joined by former Senator Tom Harkin to establish what we call the Harkin-Engel Protocol. This protocol was an agreement between governments, chocolate companies, and cocoa producers to eliminate the worst forms of child labor within cocoa production.
While the protocol has been effective, this problem persists. In 2015, 14 years after the protocol's signing, the Department of Labor reported that more than 2 million children were engaged in child labor in cocoa growing regions of West Africa. Although the chocolate industry made a promise to end child labor almost 20 years ago, today, no company can guarantee their products are free of child labor. While chocolate producers have shown some concern for the lives of these children through dedicated funding to eradicate child labor in their industry, it has simply not been enough.
The three largest chocolate suppliers in the world are not even able to identify the farms where their cocoa is being produced. As Americans, we must recognize that much of the chocolate we enjoy is harvested and produced at the expense of these young children.
We cannot let this continue. Kids should be in schools. Kids should be playing. Kids should be with friends. Kids should be kids.
After speaking with the children at Bell Elementary, I was proud to take the first step in the Labor-HHS and Education appropriations bill by including language to reinvigorate the Department of Labor's role in the international Child Labor Cocoa Coordinating Group and to hold the companies in countries involved accountable for the promises they made almost 20 years ago under the Harkin-Engel Protocol. But there is still much to do.
I look forward to working with my colleagues in Congress and Secretary Walsh to bring an end to child labor in the cocoa industry. I also want to acknowledge the amazing 12 and 13 year olds who brought this to my attention and are fighting for children they don't know halfway across the world. Standing with these students and working to further their mission is why I am proud to be a Member of this body: to ensure that students like this have their voices heard by Congress.
Mr. Speaker, I look forward to going back to Chicago and the Bell Elementary students to tell them that Congress is listening.
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