U.S. President Barack Obama has signed a bill that bans U.S. imports of goods caught and manufactured by slaves. The bill blocking imports defined "slave goods" as those which were "made with convict labor, forced labor, or indentured labor." Once the bill is enacted into a law, it will close the legal loopholes in the Tariff Act of 1930.
The bill, otherwise known as H.R. 644, is seen to eliminate the "consumptive demand" exception under the present law. The basis for its passing is an Associated Press investigation that reveals that the seafoods shipped to the U.S. from some suppliers from Thailand were processed and trapped with slave workers, CNN Money reported.
The "consumptive demand" provision under the law permits supply of imported goods, regardless of how they were produced, if domestic supply is insufficient to meet the domestic demand.
Likewise, the bill also seeks to block importation of gold mined by children in Africa, as well as some garments made by abused women in Bangladesh.
Senator Sherrod Brown is the one who proposed to eliminate the exception.
"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 told ABC News.
Since the release of the report, more than 2,000 slave fishermen were freed. Additionally, companies responsible for manufacturing and importing the goods have faced lawsuits.
A WWF study revealed that illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing are at risk of accounting more than 85% of the fish stocks all over the world. To curve the risk, the current U.S. administration signed the Port State Measures Agreement that bars port access to foreign vessels suspected of illegal activities, The Guardian reported.
Whole Foods and Red Lobster has since denied that their shrimps come from slave labor. Nestle conducted an investigation of its own and found its Thai seafood suppliers engaged in enslaving its workers.
