I don't have the WSJ article or your post. Didn't article quote AFLCIO admitting that while there were fewer factories in which child labor was employed according to inspection, it is quite probable that child labor has only gone underground.
That is, into unsafer, less regulated workplaces where children may do quite a bit more than the lighter worker they had been doing. Moreover, what happened to the children who were released. Did they go to school? For how long? How many continued to work now in the so-called informal sector, prostitution included? One only finds a negative assessment in the recent Challenge piece by Basu, the Journal of Economic Issue analysis, the Critique of Anthropology case studies, and the Spivak research. I guess you haven't looked them up yet.
As for the US having increased Bangladesh's import quota, well this raises some questions. There has been no proof that the problem of child labor has been solved in the export sector (underground parts included), much less the economy as a whole. There is no proof that the adults employed in the export are still not enduring every sort of abuse--much worse than in Cambodia! For example, one hears stories of women locked into factories to complete pending orders. The absence of the right to organize unions may be the least of the problems.
Yet the US has accepted a surge of exports from Bangladesh.
You seem to think that the humanitarian US has accepted more imports from Bangladesh due to some great labor improvements for which the AFL-CIO is responsible. But there is no proof of great labor improvements as a whole. Children are still employed if not underground in the export sector, then in informal sector jobs. The adults who replaced them may be enduring increasing miser. See Peter Custer's recent book on Women and Capital Accumulation in South Asia.
We know that India recently has accepted the import of US yarn, fabric, sythetics, etc to gain a bigger quota in the US market though the window is being fast closed on them again despite the concession. I suggest to you that if we are looking for the real reason of increased Bangladesh's exports, we try to determine the concessions to which Bangladesh has agreed behind the scenes to get the child import ban lifted and increased quotas granted.
My suspicion remains that it is these behind the scenes concessions that has the US capitalist state and the AFL CIO declaring that there has been substantial enough progress in Bangladesh (though not Cambodia!) to lift child labor bans and increase quota size.
Yours, Rakesh