New US DOL child and forced labour reports

• On 5 September, the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) published its two periodic signature reports on child and forced labour: List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor and Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor.  It also updated its List of Products Produced by Forced or Indentured Child Labor.
• The reports do not have legal standing in themselves, but they are key tools used by the U.S. government. The List of Goods Produced by Child Labor and Forced Labor is used by Congress in setting its strategy to monitor and target goods under the Tariff Act of 1930 – which bans the import of goods produced by forced or child labour – and under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA).  Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor is used to monitor a county’s eligibility for trade benefits under the U.S. Generalized System of Preferences.
• Freedom of association and collective bargaining are key focus points this year. Both reports include the same introduction, which highlights binding agreements, such as the Bangladesh Accord, as key solutions to identifying and tackling forced and child labour in supply chains. Additionally, for the first time the Worst Forms of Child Labor Report includes a list of 29 countries where freedom of association and collective bargaining are restricted.
• The reports are critical of social audits in identifying forced or child labour. This is a key theme in the introduction to both reports and was also highlighted by the DOL in its webinar launching the reports.
• This year’s report has the most additions to the List of Goods Produced by Child Labor and Forced Labor compared to any other year. Two drivers appear to have contributed to this:
  • New products were added following major NGO and media campaigns (e.g. see Mauritius, China, and India).
  • While the 2022 report began to include downstream products, this is a significantly greater focus in 2024. 59% of the newly listed products are downstream goods, meaning they are produced using inputs made with forced or child labour. Since 2023, ILAB has funded 15 projects to identify and trace goods made with forced labour in global supply chains. This includes two U.S.$ 4 million projects—one led by Verité, which examined the cotton and garment supply chains in India, and another by ELEVATE, which focused on Pakistan’s cotton and the Democratic Republic of Congo’s cobalt supply chains.
• For brands, these reports highlight foreseeable risks of forced and child labor and regulators will expect brands to be aware of these risks. We recommend that clients integrate the findings into their global risk assessments and double materiality processes under the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive and Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and ensure that strategies are in place to address child and forced labor when sourcing from listed countries.

1. List of Goods Produced by Child Labor and Forced Labor

• The List of Goods Produced by Child Labor and Forced Labor ( also called the TVPRA List) is a list of products set out per country that ILAB has reason to believe are produced with child and/or forced labour. The report does not name companies. The list is mandated by the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), which establishes human trafficking as a federal crime.
• This year, 72 new products were added to the list — the largest increase ever, compared to 32 additions in 2022.
• Since 2022, the TVPRA List includes goods made with child or forced labour, as well as downstream goods made with inputs produced with child or forced labour. Of the new products, 29 are listed as being directly produced through forced or child labour, while the remaining 43 (59%) are downstream goods involving inputs made with forced or child labour. We provide more information on each category below. Due Diligence Design integrates the findings of these reports into our Global Human Rights Risk Assessment Database and Tool.

Products made with forced and/or child labour

• The garment sector in Myanmar is now listed for forced labour, whereas it was previously only listed for child labour. The report highlights increased forced labour in the garment sector since the coup and cites Due Diligence Design’s 2022 report commissioned by the UK Ethical Trade Initiative, Myanmar enhanced due diligence sectoral assessment.
• Garments from Mauritius are now also flagged for forced labour due to the risks of foreign migrant workers being charged recruitment fees. The report cites the 2023 Transparentem report,  “I Came Here with So Many Dreams”: Labor Rights Abuses & the Need for Change in Mauritius’ Apparel Factories, which named 30 garment brands and found that migrant workers were paying high recruitment fees and working and living in unsanitary conditions.
• In the agriculture sector, seven new products made with forced and/or child labour were added.
  • Bolivia – cattle was previously only listed for forced labour and is now also listed for child labour due to evidence of children aged five to 17 being involved in cattle raising.
  • Myanmar – fish is now listed for forced labour due to reports of adults in the Ayeyarwady Delta region being forced aboard fishing rafts and out at sea for most of the year.
  • China (jujubes, squid) – Jujubes and squid are now listed for forced labour. The report highlights that Uyghur from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) have been transferred to work in squid processing facilities, primarily in Shandong Province. It also references the Ocean Outlaw Project’s findings, which link Uyghur forced labour to seafood sold in the U.S. and EU.
  • India (shrimp, sugarcane) – Shrimp is now listed for forced labor, particularly in Andhra Pradesh, where migrant workers face debt bondage, harsh conditions, and restricted movement. Sugarcane is listed for forced labour in India, due to reports of debt bondage, involuntary overtime, harsh conditions and forced hysterectomies. The report cites the New York Times and Fuller Project investigation in Maharashtra State, India, among other citations.
  • Tanzania – rice is now listed for child labour due to evidence of children under 18 being involved in rice production.
• Four items were removed from the TVPRA List this year, compared to only one in 2022. In two cases—blueberries from Argentina and shrimp from Thailand—the removal was due to improvements in labour practices. However, salt from Cambodia and fluorspar from Mongolia were removed because these countries no longer export these products at the same rate due to the impacts of climate change and depleted reserves.

Downstream products made with forced and /or child labouR

• The report targets ten input goods that are produced with child and/or forced labour and which end up in downstream end products. These include aluminium and cotton from China, cocoa from West Africa (Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana), coconuts from the Philippines, fish from Thailand, sugarcane from the Dominican Republic, palm fruit from Malaysia, tobacco from Malawi, zinc from Bolivia, and copper ore from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• The report identifies 43 downstream products that use these input goods. Notably chocolate from the Netherlands is now listed as being produced with forced and child labour. As the largest importer of cocoa beans from Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, the Netherlands is also the world’s top exporter of cocoa products. Also of note, garments from Vietnam are flagged due to the import of cotton from China.

Thematic highlights

• Forced labour of Uyghur minorities in XUAR continues to be a focus of this year’s report. Six new products were listed as being at high risk of Uyghur forced labour (caustic soda, metallurgical grade silicon, polyvinyl chloride, aluminum, jujubes, and squid).  Elfidar Iltebir, President of the Uyghur American Association was also one of the opening panelists in the DOL’s webinar to launch the report.
• The 2024 report includes a spotlight on critical minerals. These are minerals listed under the Energy Act that are essential to the green energy transition and/or advanced computing and national security. The report flags 12 critical minerals that are produced with child and/or forced labour, including aluminium, cobalt, copper, indium, lithium, manganese, nickel, silicon, tantalum, tin, tungsten and zinc. The EU also has a Critical Raw Materials Act, which is generally aligned with that of the US. The report does not include any additional guidance on how to address critical minerals given their strategic importance. However, in December 2023 the US Treasury and Department of Energy published Proposed Guidance to Strengthen Domestic Supply Chains for Batteries and Electric Vehicles, Ensure the U.S. Leads the Clean Vehicle Future. This includes guidance on encouraging domestic production of critical minerals and limiting access to ‘Foreign Entities of Concern’. The EU also has also set guidance and includes benchmarks for domestic production of critical minerals in its Critical Raw Materials Act.
• The report includes a chapter on child labour in the US but does not list any US products in the TVPRA List.  The report notes that in 2023, the DOL identified 955 child labour violations involving 5,792 children, including 502 cases involving hazardous labour. There were 13 fatal occupational injuries in the United States among young people aged 16 to 17, and six fatal occupational injuries among young people below the age of 16 in 2022. In 2023, the DOL issued US$ 8 million in penalties for child labour violations. The report noted significant cases, including the record penalty of US$1.5 million against food safety sanitation company Packers Sanitation Services in February 2023 for employing 102 children between the ages of 13 to 17 years old in overnight shifts. In February 2023, the US formed an Interagency Taskforce to Combat Child Labor Exploitation, which works closely with the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division.

2. Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor

• Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor is published annually under the Trade and Development Act, which requires countries to implement commitments to eliminate the worst forms of child labour (WFCL) in order to benefit from trade preferences under the US Generalized System of Preferences (GSP).
• The report covers 119 countries and 15 non-independent territories that are currently or have previously benefited from GSP. ILAB assesses the extent to which each country has progressed in addressing WFCL in the previous year and scores them as having significant, moderate, minimal, or no advancement.
• Garment-producing countries have generally made moderate progress on WFCL. Mexico stands out as an exception; it is listed as having made significant advancements due to changes to its laws. In contrast, Bangladesh and Cambodia are listed as having made minimal progress. In Bangladesh, this is due to the government allegedly preventing unannounced inspections in the Export Processing Zones and insufficient penalties for child labour. Cambodia’s ranking is due to child labour in the brick making sector. Myanmar is listed as having made no advancements.  
• Similarly, most countries listed in the agricultural sector have made had moderate progress on WFCL. Argentina, Chile and Cote d’Ivoire are the exception and have all made significant progress. Argentina launched the 2023-2025 National Roadmap on the Eradication of Child Labour. In Chile, the government conducted a National Survey of Activities of Children and Adolescents to assess and adjust programmes and efforts to address child labour and increased labour inspections. Côte d’Ivoire increased the Ministry of Education’s budget, which enabled more teachers to be hired, and increased community monitoring.
• For the first time, this year’s report also includes an assessment of the rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining across all countries evaluated. This is not required under the Trade and Development Act but was included by ILAB because it is an enabling right that plays an important role in identifying and combating child labour. The report identifies 29 countries where freedom of association and collective bargaining ‘face challenges’, including Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Burundi, Burma, Cambodia, Colombia, Djibouti, Ecuador, Egypt, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia, India, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Philippines, Somalia, Thailand, Uzbekistan, Yemen, and Zimbabwe.
• The definition of worst forms of child labour is based on the ILO definition in its Convention No. 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labor. This includes
  • All forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom and forced or compulsory labour, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict;
  • The use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution, for the production of pornography or for pornographic performances;
  • The use, procuring or offering of a child for illicit activities, in particular for the production and trafficking of drugs as defined in the relevant international treaties;
  • Work which, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children.

3. List of Products Produced by Forced or Indentured Child Labor

• The List of Products Produced by Forced or Indentured Child Labor is a list of products that the DOL and the Departments of State and Homeland Security have a reasonable basis to believe might have been mined, produced or manufactured by forced or indentured child labor.  This list was also updated in September and matches the list of goods produced with forced child labour under the 2024 TVPRA List.
• The List is intended to ensure that U.S. federal agencies do not procure goods made by forced or indentured child labour. Under procurement regulations, federal contractors who supply products on the List must certify that they have made a good faith effort to determine whether forced or indentured child labor was used to produce the items supplied.