27 produced with child labour in 74 countries.3 Open-access resources include the full report on the list of goods (U.S. Department of Labor, 2020a) and an interactive database (U.S. Department of Labor, n.d.-a) disaggregating data per country and per good. With respect to the context of this List of Goods, ILO (1973) Convention 138 serves as the leading international standard in which each ratifying country – 173 to date (ILO, n.d.-c) – undertakes to pursue a national policy designed to ensure the effective abolition of child labour and to raise progressively the minimum age for admission to employment or work to a level consistent with the fullest physical and mental development of young persons” (ILO, 1973). The terms and age limits of each age group are defined in section A. Definitions above.
2. USDOL’s “List of Products Produced by Forced or Indentured Child Labor” Pursuant to Executive Order 13126, ILAB also compiles the List of Products and their source countries which it has “a reasonable basis to believe” they are “produced by forced or indentured child labor” (U.S. Department of Labor, n.d.-c). As of March 2019, the List of Products comprised 34 products from 25 countries. Available resources include an interactive database per country and product. This list is then used to ensure “that U.S. federal agencies do not procure goods made by forced or indentured child labor” (U.S. Department of Labor, n.d.-c). The broader context of this List of Products is the following: 1. With ILO Convention 182 – 187 ratifications to date (ILO, n.d.-c) – ratifiers “shall take immediate and effective measures to secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour as a matter of urgency” (ILO, 1999). The very definition of the term Worst Forms of Child Labour, as per Article 3 of the convention, includes in first place “(a) 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 (…).” 2. With ILO Convention 29 – 179 ratifications to date (ILO, n.d.-c) – ratifiers undertake to “suppress the use of forced or compulsory labour in all its forms within the shortest possible period” (ILO, 1930).The term forced or compulsory labour is defined as “all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily.” 3. With ILO Convention 105 – 176 ratifications to date (ILO, n.d.-c) – ratifiers undertake to “suppress and not to make use of any form of forced or compulsory labour” (ILO,
3
The European Commission (2020d) prepared a list of critical raw material (CRM). In its last 2020 revision, the EU list contains 30 materials which 7 of them were flagged by USDOL as produced with child labour: Cobalt, Coking Coal, Fluorspar, Natural Rubber, Tantalum, Tungsten, and Natural Graphite (as part of “Stones” exported in certain countries flagged by USDOL).
