US Updates List Of Goods Made With Child, Forced Labour

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US Updates List Of Goods Made With Child, Forced Labour

The US Department of Labour's (DOL) International Labour Affairs Bureau (ILAB) has issued an updated list of goods and countries of origin that the Bureau has reason to believe are produced by child labour or forced labour in violation of international standards. ILAB is required to develop and make available to the public this list pursuant to the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorisation Act, as amended. ILAB issued its initial list on 10 September 2009 and has since published seven updated editions. The list now includes a total of 139 goods from 75 countries.

The 2016 edition adds three new goods (pepper, potatoes and silk cocoons) and two new countries (Costa Rica and Sudan) to the list, as well as various new product-country combinations. Newly added product/country combinations of potential interest include, among others, sugarcane from Cambodia (child labour), fish and tin from Indonesia (forced labour), and textiles, footwear, furniture, leather, fish, rubber, timber, tobacco, pepper, cashews, tea, rice, sugarcane and coffee from Vietnam (child labour). In addition, the DOL removed its forced labour listing for garments from Jordan. The list currently includes a range of products made in China namely artificial flowers (forced labour), Christmas decorations (forced labour), cotton (child and forced labour), footwear (forced labour), garments (forced labour), textiles (child labour), toys (child and forced labour), among others. The list also includes key products from several large or significant US suppliers, including garments from Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam; cotton from Azerbaijan, Benin, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Egypt, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan; footwear from Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Indonesia (only sandals) and Vietnam; textiles from Bangladesh, Cambodia, India (embellished) and Vietnam; and leather or leather goods from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Vietnam.

Gold is the product with the most child labour and forced labour listings with 22 countries, followed by bricks and sugarcane with 19 countries each, cotton with 18, coffee and tobacco with 16 each, cattle with 13, fish with 11, rice with nine, and garments and textiles with eight each. The highest concentration of forced labour is currently found in cotton with eight countries, followed by garments and bricks with seven countries each, and cattle and sugarcane with five countries each.

The DOL states that governments and industries with goods on the list can engage directly with the agency and other stakeholders to develop plans for eradicating child labour and forced labour in the listed sectors. Companies and industry groups are also encouraged to use the DOL's ‘Reducing Child Labor and Forced Labour: A Toolkit for Responsible Businesses’ a report to develop or improve their social compliance systems. The DOL added that consumers can engage with the companies from whom they buy products to ask whether their practices measure up to internationally-recognised standards for responsible business.

Executive Order 13126 prohibits federal agencies from acquiring goods, wares, articles and merchandise that have been mined, produced or manufactured wholly or in part by forced or indentured child labour.

The EO 13126 list identifies products that the DOL has a reasonable basis to believe might meet that criterion. Federal contractors who supply products on this list must certify that they have made a good faith effort to determine whether forced or indentured child labour was used to mine, produce or manufacture them and that, on the basis of those efforts, they are unaware of any such use of child labour. This list currently includes four products from mainland China: bricks, cotton, electronics and toys. Finally, ILAB has also requested comments and information before December 15 as part of the process to prepare forthcoming editions of Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorisation Act (TVPRA) list of goods.