Prohibitions on Purchases of Products Produced by Forced or Indentured Child Labor

The ILAB (Bureau of International Labor Affairs), a division within the Department of Labor maintains a listing of products produced by forced or indentured child labor (click here to review that listing).

This listing goes back to the Clinton Administration and Executive Order 13126 which prohibited the Government from acquiring products mined, produced, or manufactured wholly or in part by forced or indentured child labor. The implementing regulations are found in FAR Part 22.15.

Before a contracting officer may make an award for an end product of a type identified on the "list", the contractor (or prospective contractor) must certify that

1. It will not supply any end product on the "list" that was mined, produced, or manufactured in a country identified on the "list" for that product or
2. It has made a good faith effort to determine whether forced or indentured child labor was used to mine, produce, or manufacture any end product to be furnished under the contract that is on the "list" and was mined, produced, or manufactured in a country identified on the "list" for that product and on the basis of those efforts, the offeror is unaware of any such use of child labor.

There is no guidance or instructions on what it means to make a "good faith effort" to determine whether forced or indentured child labor was used to mine, produce or manufacture products. Obviously, an offeror has to do something and document that activity and present it to the contracting officer to see whether it is adequate. In most cases, there would be no expectation on the Government's part that the offeror go out and physically observe the production activity and interview workers, managers, and owners.

Currently, there are 35 items on ILAB's list, most of which would not be in high demand by the U.S. Government. We just cannot imagine the Government buying a lot of bricks from Burma, carpets from Nepal, cattle from South Sudan, coal from Pakistan, diamonds from Sierra Leone and granite from Nigeria. Perhaps electronics from China, which is also on the list, might be a possibility. One very very curious item on the list is pornography from Russia. Now why in the world would the U.S. Government want or need to buy pornography from anywhere? Some procurement regulations are just weird. (UPDATE: Someone just mentioned that pornography might be procured for PSYOPS purposes).