Labor Adds Incense, Etc. to List of Goods Believed Produced with Child/Forced Labor

(ILAB is required to develop and make the list available to the public pursuant to the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005. The primary purposes are to raise public awareness about the incidence of child labor and forced labor in the production of goods in the countries listed and to promote efforts to eliminate such practices. ILAB published the initial list in September 2009 and its first update in December 2010. See ITT’s Online Archives 09091815 and 10121627 for summaries.)

Adds New Products (Incense and Goats), New Country (Mauritania), Etc.

Among other things, this update adds 2 new goods, incense (agarbatti) and goats, and 1 new country Mauritania, to the list. It also adds new line items to five countries already on the List. For example, Mali previously had two items on the List and now has three with the inclusion of child labor in cotton production. In addition, the update adds a “forced labor” designation to three goods that were already on the list in the “child labor” category: bricks from Afghanistan and cassiterite and coltan from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

With this update, there are now a total of 130 listed goods from 71 countries.

The following is the current list, with the newly added goods/countries marked in bold,underlinedtext:

(See ILAB table for details of which kind of labor applies to each product.)

¹Agarbattis, also known as joss sticks, incense sticks or prayer sticks, are used in temple and domestic offerings by millions around the world.

(See ITT’s Online Archives 11100413 for summary of another ILAB notice proposing to add bricks from Afghanistan and cassiterite and coltan from the Congo to its list of products requiring federal contractor certification as to forced child labor.)

List is available here.

ILAB background information on this list, FAQ document, etc. available here.

DOL ILAB contact - (202) 693--4843

(FR Pub 10/03/11)