Whole or in part by children

Following its separation from East Pakistan the newly formed Bangladesh lost access to both capital and technical expertise.

Now, Bangladesh's export trade is now dominated by the ready-made garments (RMG) industry. In 2012 Bangladesh’s garment exports – mainly to the US and Europe – made up nearly 80% of the country’s export income. By 2014 RMG represented 81.13 percent of Bangladesh's total export. Of the millions of wage earning children in Bangladesh in 1990, almost all of them worked in the ready-made garment (RMG) industry. Based on the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics Labor Force Survey estimated there were about 5.7 million 10- to 14-year-old children engaged in child labor. This number may have been as high as 15 million children.

The Child Labor Deterrence Act (the Harkin Bill after Senator Tom Harkin, one of the US Senators who proposed the bill). The act which banned "importation to the United States of products which are manufactured or mined in whole or in part by children" Often when there are fires in garment factories, most exits are locked so that employees do not steal garments during the evacuation. Garment manufacturing companies seem to value their product more than the health and safety of their employees.

The great American story, that self-righteous, blood-thirsty, so-called Christian nation has sown the wind and is now reaping the whirlwind. Now they’re reaping it in their own children.

Ted Rudow III, MA