To increase"understanding of the link between climate change and vulnerability to child labor and/or forced labor risks," in the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, the Labor Department is handing roughly $4 million in taxpayer funds to a group in the United States or overseas to conduct"socially-inclusive research," newly released funding records show.
Around 1.1 million children are in forced labor in Nepal, which has a population of over 30 million people, the Labor Department said in a 2021 report. The agriculture sector accounts for nearly one-third of the country's gross domestic product, though it is"highly vulnerable to climate change," the agency declared in the new funding documents.
"One way to do that is by helping them access more reliable, affordable energy in the form of oil, natural gas, and coal, which would actually reduce the poverty that causes families to have to rely on child labor," Sgamma told the Washington Examiner."A convoluted study about climate change does nothing to lift families out of poverty and free children to go to school instead of work in sweatshops.