Child labor returns to U.S.: media

NEW YORK, April 23 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Iowa Senate advanced a bill last week, which would dismantle many child labor restrictions in that state, expand the types of jobs that minors can legally work, extend the maximum length of shifts, and allow businesses to employ them late at night, the World Socialist Web Site reported on Saturday.

"The bill was introduced in the Republican-controlled legislature on the grounds of 'modernizing' Iowa's child labor laws," said the report. "In fact, it is the thin end of a wedge of a massive social regression."

The United States never tires of lecturing others about "democracy" and "human rights," but here, the barbaric practice of child labor, once thought to be consigned to the dustbin of history, at least in the advanced industrialized countries, is back, it said.

A total of 10 states have considered bills to loosen child labor restrictions in the United States in the last two years, the report said, citing the Economic Policy Institute.