"Before products like cell phones or baby formula show up on store shelves, countless workers are engaged in their production. Far from the eyes of inspectors and shoppers, too many children and adults toil in exploitation harvesting crops, extracting minerals, and assembling parts into final products. Today, there are an estimated 160 million child laborers and nearly 28 million people in forced labor, the majority of whom work at the bottom of global supply chains, invisible to the outside world.
The U.S. Department of Labor is amplifying the voices of these workers to ensure companies are held accountable for exploitative labor conditions throughout their supply chains.
The department’s flagship reports and resources contain the most rigorous examination yet of child labor and forced labor. Our reporting shows how the behaviors and decisions of businesses, consumers and governments affect horrific conditions of labor abuse and exploitation around the world. Leveraging an expanded mandate, the Bureau of International Labor Affairs’ 2022 List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor not only raises awareness of goods produced directly with child labor or forced labor but also draws attention to goods produced with inputs made by child labor or forced labor. For example:
Our research shows that lithium-ion batteries made in China – batteries that power electric vehicles – are often produced with cobalt mined by children in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
We’re exposing how dozens of consumer products that contain palm oil may be at risk, as palm fruit is often produced by forced and child labor in Southeast Asia.
We’re calling attention to the solar supply chain in China, and how Chinese-produced solar panels are often made with polysilicon produced with forced labor in Xinjiang.
Our cutting-edge approach to tracing labor exploitation in these supply chains, brought to life through our new "Exposing Exploitation in Global Supply Chains" series, helps us shine a light on abuses we might not otherwise see if we looked at finished products alone.
This work is just the beginning – we’ll be expanding our supply chain research and enforcement support in the coming year. ILAB is also funding projects to pilot new ways of tracing complex global supply chains and investing in efforts to lift up the voices of workers whose labor powers these global goods. We demand that other governments and companies join us to end labor exploitation and stand up for workers’ rights..."
Child labor
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