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The Department of Labor released a list yesterday highlighting child and forced labor practices in the production of 122 goods in 58 countries worldwide, a move hailed by labor groups as a step forward in the fight against international labor rights abuses. The DOL’s report comes as part of what Labor Secretary Hilda Solis calls the United States’ “moral duty to help and protect” the world’s more than 200 million most vulnerable individuals. Aside from children, these include women, indigenous peoples and migrants, who are subjected to forced labor in every region of the world. The report names agricultural crops, as the largest category in which child and forced labor are employed – crops like cotton from Uzbekistan, sugarcane from the Philippines, tobacco from Tanzania, coffee from Panama and cocoa from the Ivory Coast. Closely following farming industries are manufactured goods, mined or quarried goods and child pornography. The report does not go as far as naming American companies that purchase goods produced by child or forced labor abroad; however it could be used to pressure companies such as Hershey’s Chocolate, which has come under fire in recent years for its investment in the West African cocoa industry, widely criticized for its use of child labor. Wal-Mart and Kmart are two other US companies that are known to have bought supplies produced by child labor.

GUEST: Brian Campbell, Director of Policy and Legal Programs at the International Labor Rights Forum.

Read the DOL Report here: http://www.dol.gov/ilab/

For more information, visit www.ilrf.org.