Do-gooders here are suspected of shallow thinking. Frightened employers impulsively fired tens of thousands of children under the age of 14. By and large, this was not any great setback to the bosses. Very often, they had hired the children as a favor to woebegone parents. Within the next few years, as the Harkin bill became law, about 10,000 of the children ended up in special schools created by Unicef.
Progress leaves loopholes.
A lot is left to the factory owner's good will, and there is a great deal of curdling in the milk of human kindness. Recently, the biggest force for reform has come from big retailers worried about the bottom line. Some, like Gap and Wal-Mart, were embarrassingly linked to third world sweatshops and are now rehabilitating their image. Others fear similar scandals that might make softhearted customers feel guiltily attired. Some major companies now issue codes of conduct and send inspectors into their suppliers' factories to enforce the rules, counting fire exits and auditing overtime records.