Our Summer Campaign Needs Your Help!
We cannot afford to come up short. It's tough right now.
#
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.
Brian Campbell, brian.campbell@ilrf.org, 202-347-4100 x102
Tim Newman, tim.newman@ilrf.org, 202-347-4100 x113 or 617-823-9464
Today, the US Department of Labor (DOL) released a list of
goods believed to have been produced using forced or child labor globally. The
list includes a number of industries where the International Labor Rights Forum
(ILRF) has identified these labor rights abuses to occur including cocoa,
cotton, tobacco and rubber.
Today, the US Department of Labor (DOL) released a list of
goods believed to have been produced using forced or child labor globally. The
list includes a number of industries where the International Labor Rights Forum
(ILRF) has identified these labor rights abuses to occur including cocoa,
cotton, tobacco and rubber.
As part of the Trafficking Victims
Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005 (TVPRA of 2005), DOL's Bureau of
International Labor Affairs (ILAB) was tasked with "develop[ing] and
mak[ing] available to the public a list of goods from countries that the Bureau
of International Labor Affairs has reason to believe are produced by forced
labor or child labor in violation of international standards." ILRF is
pleased to see that this useful resource has been publicly released after years
of work.
Since 2001, ILRF has been pushing US-based
cocoa importers and chocolate companies like Hershey to take effective action
to end the use of child, trafficked and forced labor on West African cocoa
farms. ILRF Executive Director Bama Athreya said, "By including
cocoa on the list of products made by child labor, the US government has acknowledged the
lack of progress the chocolate industry has made in eliminating serious labor
rights abuses in this sector, despite years of promises." Recent events
confirm the appropriateness of including cocoa on the list. In June of this
year, INTERPOL rescued children in Cote d'Ivoire who had been
trafficked from neighboring countries as part of an ongoing system of
trafficking and forced labor in the West African cocoa industry.
ILRF has also been working to stop forced
and child labor in the cotton industry globally, especially in Uzbekistan.
Reports published by ILRF and its global partners have confirmed the ongoing
removal of thousands of children from schools across Uzbekistan who are forced to pick
cotton during harvest season.
The inclusion of tobacco on the list
indicates that the US
government believes that industry efforts to eliminate child labor in this
sector have not been sufficient. Labor rights abuses in tobacco production
continue in countries like Malawi
where a recent report by PLAN International found that thousands of children as
young as five work on tobacco estates and suffer nicotine poisoning from being
exposed to the equivalent of 50 cigarettes a day.
Other additional products that ILRF included
in its testimony to the Department of Labor that appear on the official
list are: cotton from Tajikistan,
cottonseed and stones from India,
sugarcane from Guatemala and
surgical instruments from Pakistan.
ILRF also has a long history of working to eliminate child labor in the soccer
ball industry in India.
Commenting on the importance of the list, Brian Campbell, ILRF Director of Policy and Legal Programs, said,
"This list is a critical tool that consumers and businesses can use to
identify the sectors where forced and child labor abuses continue. As I stated
in ILRF's testimony
to the Department of Labor last year, this list helps to focus attention on problematic
sectors and the challenge now is to implement business practices that lead to a
higher labor standards and living and working conditions for workers."
Bama
Athreya added, "We hope that the Department
of Labor will continue to welcome additional information regarding the sectors
included on the list as well as other industries using forced and child labor.
A regular, at least annual, update of this list will help to show progress or
lack thereof in addressing these abuses and identify new areas on which to
focus."
Now that the list has been published, a
Consultative Group established as part
of the Farm Bill in 2008 will work to "develop the recommendations
for best practices for the voluntary, third-party certification
initiative" to ensure that agricultural products imported or sold in the
US are not made by child labor. ILRF hopes that the members of the
Consultative Group will be announced shortly and that this body will work
swiftly and effectively to ensure that child and forced labor is eliminated
from the production of US agricultural imports, especially cocoa, cotton,
tobacco and rubber.
ILRF is an advocacy organization dedicated to achieving just and humane treatment for workers worldwide. ILRF serves a unique role among human rights organizations as advocates for and with working poor around the world. We believe that all workers have the right to a safe working environment where they are treated with dignity and respect, and where they can organize freely to defend and promote their rights and interests.
"This amendment is crucial as taxpayers and other citizens remain concerned—and inadequately informed—about the cost to U.S. taxpayers of the wide range of U.S. military activities abroad."
U.S. lawmakers remain on August recess but 20 advocacy groups on Monday wrote to top Democrats and Republicans on key congressional panels to demand passage of "commonsense, noncontroversial" legislation to provide the public with greater transparency on U.S. military spending.
When members of Congress return to Capitol Hill next month, they will continue reconciling the differences between the House and Senate versions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2024—a process that involves intense disagreements over right-wing policies that Republicans want to stuff into the $886 billion package.
The advocacy organizations—including Amnesty International USA, Demand Progress Action, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Just Foreign Policy, Peace Action, RootsAction.com, Veterans for Peace, and Win Without War—came together to support an amendment to the NDAA proposed by Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.).
Writing to Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Ranking Member Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and House Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) and Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the groups explained how Bowman's proposal has its roots in the 2015 Cost of War Act led by former Congressman John Lewis (D-Ga.).
Last year, the late congressman's successor, Rep. Nikema Williams (D-Ga.), "carried forward this legacy by introducing new Cost of War legislation expanding the scope of John Lewis' work to include the cost to U.S. taxpayers for any overseas contingency operations," the letter notes, arguing that its inclusion in a previous NDAA "demonstrates the broad-based support for accountability and transparency around U.S. defense spending."
For the FY23 NDAA, Bowman introduced "the latest update to John Lewis' Cost of War legislation," an amendment that "requires reporting on a wider range of costs to fully encompass the U.S. military footprint abroad that is not covered by the former two pieces of legislation," the letter details. "This includes the price of training and assisting partner forces, maintaining overseas bases, paying contractors who provide goods and services in support of operations, and all overseas military operations."
Bowman's measure passed the House but was ultimately left out of the final NDAA. The groups behind the letter to panel leaders now hope it will remain included in the next one, writing that "this amendment is crucial as taxpayers and other citizens remain concerned—and inadequately informed—about the cost to U.S. taxpayers of the wide range of U.S. military activities abroad, including those that fall short of active military missions such as wars or contingency operations."
"Many Americans want great public scrutiny and debate about the balance our nation strikes between spending on our military presence abroad and spending on other domestic priorities," the groups stressed. "This includes spending on healthcare, education, and infrastructure, as well as concerns about the rate of taxation or national debt required to sustain the U.S. overseas presence."
"These debates will only become more relevant as our military budget approaches the $1 trillion mark," the organizations added, "and it is important that the American people have the necessary transparency and data about these costs to engage in our nation's democratic decision-making process around such questions."
"The exceptions in the bill are so narrow, and the penalties for violating the Texas ban are so high, that invariably," said one legal expert, "a lot of doctors are going to continue not to offer abortion in those situations because they don't want to get in trouble."
Rights advocates said Monday that a new law set to go into effect this week in Texas may appear on its face to be aimed at ensuring that pregnant people experiencing medical emergencies can access abortion care—but warned that it could not only do little to protect abortion access in Texas but also give residents a false sense of their reproductive rights and the Republican Party's intentions when it comes to preserving bodily autonomy.
House Bill 3058 was proposed by state Rep. Ann Johnson (D-134) and, as written, allows doctors to provide "certain medical treatment to a pregnant woman" in cases of premature rupture of membranes when it is too early in pregnancy for a fetus to survive, or an ectopic pregnancy.
Under the new so-called "exceptions," healthcare providers in Texas could ostensibly avoid up to $100,000 in fines or a life sentence in prison if they provided abortion care in these instances, despite the state law that bans abortion in all cases, including pregnancies that result from rape or incest, at six weeks gestation.
But legal experts and abortion rights advocates say that like exceptions that already exist in many of the abortion bans and restrictions that have been passed in at least 22 states since Roe v. Wade was overturned last year, many patients are still likely to face dangerous delays in care.
H.B. 3058 appears to have been overwhelmingly approved by state Republicans and GOP Gov. Greg Abbott not because of genuine concern for the well-being of people who seek abortion care, said University of California, Davis law professor Mary Ziegler, but to improve voters' views of the abortion ban that the Texas Republican Party pushed through in 2021.
"Republicans can now point to these new exceptions and say, 'Look, that kind of thing doesn't happen anymore,'" Ziegler toldThe Guardian on Monday.
But even with the new legislation, she added, "the exceptions in the bill are so narrow, and the penalties for violating the Texas ban are so high, that invariably, a lot of doctors are going to continue not to offer abortion in those situations because they don't want to get in trouble."
Researcher Grace Haley noted at the Substack publication Abortion, Every Day last week that H.B. 3058 was passed after 14 women in Texas joined a lawsuit saying the state's ban imperiled their health and lives—denying them care when they and their fetuses faced medical emergencies and causing them to develop life-threatening infections, travel to other states for care while pregnant with fetuses that had severe complications, and face other emotional and physical distress.
Since news reports of such cases have become increasingly common following the overturning of Roe, polling has shown that a growing share of Americans believe abortion care should be legal at all stages of pregnancy.
Haley wrote that in order to distance itself from images of pregnant patients facing life-threatening medical emergencies and being denied necessary care, the GOP is seeking to "redefine what an abortion is."
"The definition of abortion isn't flexible—it's a medical intervention to end a pregnancy. But GOP lawmakers want to make abortion an intention instead," wrote Haley.
In a video posted to TikTok, Abortion, Every Day author and advocate Jessica Valenti warned that "it is so dangerous for Democrats to go along with this" as Johnson and other Democratic lawmakers in Texas are.
The move "opens the door for much broader criminalization and enforcement: If someone has a stillborn baby, for example, but at some point did a Google search for abortion clinics—that's something that could be used by a prosecutor to target them," Haley wrote.
"Some doctors point out that this language is a small scope surrounding the plethora of pregnancy complications," she added, "and advocates wonder if the compromise is worth accepting anti-abortion framing."
"President Biden says he is going to use every tool he can to cancel student debt, but there is still much more he can do," said a co-founder of the Debt Collective. "With this new tool, we are calling his bluff."
"Filling out this form creates an individual demand letter, tailored to your own student debt story, calling on the Department of Education to use its powers to cancel not just your debt, but everyone's."
That's how the Debt Collective describes a tool it launched Monday to increase pressure on the Biden administration to deliver on long-promised relief from federal student loan repayments.
As the group's website explains, for those who want to use the tool:
"Using this new tool can in no way harm you," said Debt Collective spokesperson Braxton Brewington. "The reality is, the Education Department has the authority to eliminate a person's federal student debts if they want to. We know because they've done it before. Whether they choose to cancel people's debts or not is completely up to their political rationale."
An FAQ section for the tool explains that filling out the form does not ensure debt cancellation, and "the Department of Education is not required to respond to these letters. However, our goal is to submit so many of them, they will HAVE to make a statement."
President Joe Biden—who is seeking reelection next year—announced his initial plan to use a 2003 law to cancel up to $20,000 per borrower last August, but the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority struck down the program in June.
Now, with loan payments that have been paused throughout the Covid-19 pandemic set to resume in October, borrowers and some Democrats in Congress have renewed demands for urgent relief action by the Biden administration.
"President Biden says he is going to use every tool he can to cancel student debt, but there is still much more he can do," noted Debt Collective co-founder Thomas Gokey. "With this new tool, we are calling his bluff and demanding he cancel the debt for everyone today."
After the Supreme Court ruling, the Biden administration initiated a rulemaking process involving the Higher Education Act of 1965, but borrowers and campaigners are concerned about how long it is taking and warn that right-wing opponents of debt cancellation will use the time to come up with ways to keep blocking relief.
Hoping for swift and sweeping presidential action, the Debt Collective previously published a draft executive order that says in part, "The secretary of education shall immediately use the full extent of his power under the Higher Education Act and any other applicable law to cancel all obligations to repay federal student loans."