Obama bans imports of slave-made goods

President Barack Obama signed a bill Wednesday that includes a provision banning U.S. imports of fish caught by slaves in Southeast Asia, gold mined by children in Africa and garments sewn by abused women in Bangladesh, closing a loophole in an 85-year-old tariff law that has failed to keep products of forced and child labor out of America.

An expose by the Associated Press last year found Thai companies ship seafood to the U.S. that was caught and processed by trapped and enslaved workers. As a result of the reports, more than 2,000 trapped fishermen have been rescued, more than a dozen alleged traffickers arrested and millions of dollars’ worth of seafood and vessels seized.

Until now, U.S. customs law banning imports of items produced by forced or child labor had gone largely unenforced because of two words: “consumptive demand” – if there was not sufficient supply to meet domestic demand, imports were allowed regardless of how they were produced.

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who offered the amendment eliminating that exception, said Wednesday his office is already asking U.S. Customs and Border Protection to ensure they begin enforcing the new rules when the law takes effect in 15 days.

“It’s embarrassing that for 85 years, the United States let products made with forced labor into this country, and closing this loophole gives the U.S. an important tool to fight global slavery,” he said.

The U.S. Tariff Act of 1930 gave Customs and Border Protection the authority to seize shipments where forced labor is suspected and block further imports. However, it has been used only 39 times in 85 years, in large part because of an exemption that said goods made by children, prisoners or slaves can be allowed into the U.S. if consumer demand cannot be met without them. Drafted during the Depression, lawmakers at the time placed economic need over foreign labor rights, according to legal historians.

Imports of a Labor Department list of more than 350 goods produced by child or forced labor – cotton from Kazakhstan, wheat from Pakistan, lobsters from Honduras – may now face federal law enforcement.

David Olave, a Washington D.C.-based trade consultant, said earlier this month he’s concerned about unfair and overreaching seizures by Customs and Border Protection investigators who would be hard-pressed to prove a product in a particular shipping container was picked or processed by a forced laborer. And he said U.S. firms have already been proactive in trying to keep labor abuse out of their supply chains, well ahead of government regulations.

“From my perspective, this is more of an image issue,” he said, “It looks bad, to have a law that says we want to stop child labor, unless we really need it. It might have sounded OK in 1930, but it doesn’t sound good today.”

David Abramowitz, who advocated for the change as vice president of Humanity United, said the federal government will need to dedicate the resources to make sure the law is now properly enforced.

“We in civil society will have to be vigilant so that these reforms really lead to ensuring that U.S. markets are not open to goods made with modern slavery,” he said.