Supply Chain Slavery

The products that define modern life, smartphones, chocolate, clothing, seafood, are frequently produced through supply chains that rely on forced labor, child labor, and debt bondage. Unlike the visible cruelty of historical slavery, supply chain slavery is concealed behind layers of subcontractors, intermediaries, and corporate structures designed to insulate brands from accountability. The US Department of Labor identifies goods produced by child labor or forced labor from 78 countries across 200+ product categories.

Cobalt Mining. Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of the Congo produces approximately 74% of the world’s cobalt; an essential mineral for lithium-ion batteries that power smartphones, laptops, and electric vehicles. An estimated 255,000 Congolese miners work in artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) operations, many of which employ children as young as six years old.

Child Labor in Cobalt Mines

Amnesty International and Afrewatch documented in a landmark 2016 report that children in the DRC work in hand-dug mines without protective equipment, carrying heavy loads of ore and exposed to toxic cobalt dust. Health effects include chronic lung disease, skin conditions, and musculoskeletal injuries. Children earn as little as $1–$2 per day.

In 2019, International Rights Advocates filed a landmark lawsuit (Doe v. Apple et al.) on behalf of 14 Congolese families whose children were killed or seriously injured in cobalt mines. The suit named Apple, Google, Dell, Microsoft, and Tesla as defendants, arguing these companies had “specific knowledge” that their cobalt supply chains relied on child labor. The case was dismissed on procedural grounds in 2021, but it catalyzed industry-wide supply chain auditing initiatives.

Corporate Response

Major technology companies have taken varying approaches. Apple published its first detailed cobalt supply chain map in 2020. Tesla signed a direct sourcing agreement with Glencore to bypass artisanal mining. The Responsible Minerals Initiative expanded its due diligence standards. Critics argue these measures remain insufficient; artisanal cobalt continues to enter formal supply chains through middlemen and trading houses that blend ASM cobalt with industrially mined material.

Cocoa Industry. West Africa

Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana produce approximately 60% of the world’s cocoa. Despite the Harkin-Engel Protocol of 2001, a voluntary industry agreement to eliminate the worst forms of child labor from cocoa production, an estimated 1.56 million children continue to work in hazardous conditions on cocoa farms in West Africa.

Child Trafficking in Cocoa

Children are trafficked from Burkina Faso, Mali, and other neighboring countries to work on cocoa farms in Côte d’Ivoire. They are recruited with promises of education or wages, then held in debt bondage and forced to perform dangerous work including clearing land with machetes, applying pesticides without protection, and carrying heavy loads. A 2020 NORC at the University of Chicago study, commissioned by the US Department of Labor, found that 43% of children on cocoa farms were exposed to at least one form of hazardous labor.

Two Decades of Broken Promises

The Harkin-Engel Protocol set an original deadline of 2005 to eliminate the worst forms of child labor in cocoa. That deadline has been extended repeatedly; to 2008, 2010, and most recently to 2025. Major chocolate companies including Mars, Nestlé, Hershey, and Mondelez have collectively spent billions on sustainability programs, yet the absolute number of children in hazardous work on cocoa farms has increased since 2001, according to DOL-commissioned surveys.

Seafood Industry. Slavery at Sea

The global seafood industry is one of the sectors most heavily implicated in forced labor and human trafficking. Workers are trafficked onto fishing vessels, held at sea for months or years without pay, subjected to physical violence, and, in documented cases, murdered and thrown overboard.

Thailand’s Fishing Fleet

A 2015 Associated Press investigation, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, documented systematic forced labor in Thailand’s fishing industry. Reporters found migrant workers from Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos held in cages on the Indonesian island of Benjina, waiting to be loaded onto Thai fishing boats. Workers described being beaten, starved, and forced to work 20-hour days. Some had been at sea for years without returning to port. The investigation led to the rescue of over 2,000 workers and the arrest of trafficking suspects.

Thailand was subsequently downgraded to Tier 3 (the lowest ranking) on the US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report. The Thai government responded with reforms including the establishment of a Command Center for Combating Illegal Fishing and port inspections of returning vessels. Thailand was upgraded to Tier 2 Watch List in 2018, though labor rights organizations argue enforcement remains inconsistent.

Ghost Ships & Transshipment

Transshipment, the transfer of catch from fishing vessels to refrigerated cargo ships at sea, enables vessels to remain at sea indefinitely without returning to port. This practice, legal in many jurisdictions, eliminates the inspection opportunities that could identify forced labor. Workers on these “ghost ships” are effectively imprisoned at sea, with no access to communication, authorities, or escape routes. The Environmental Justice Foundation has documented cases of workers held at sea for over five years.

Garment Industry. Fast Fashion’s Human Cost

The global garment industry employs an estimated 75 million workers worldwide, concentrated in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, and other low-wage countries. The relentless pressure of fast fashion, producing cheap clothing at high speed, creates conditions that facilitate forced labor, wage theft, and unsafe working environments.

Rana Plaza

On April 24, 2013, the Rana Plaza garment factory complex in Dhaka, Bangladesh, collapsed, killing 1,134 workers and injuring over 2,500. Workers had reported cracks in the building the previous day but were ordered to return to work under threat of withheld wages. The building housed factories supplying Primark, Benetton, Walmart, and other Western brands. Rana Plaza became the deadliest garment factory disaster in history and a turning point in global awareness of supply chain labor conditions.

The disaster led to the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety (now the International Accord), signed by over 200 brands, which mandated independent safety inspections of factories. However, worker rights organizations note that the underlying conditions that produced Rana Plaza, extreme price pressure, weak enforcement, and fragmented subcontracting, remain largely intact across the global garment industry.

Fast Fashion & Forced Labor

The rise of ultra-fast fashion companies, producing new styles in as little as one to two weeks, has intensified pressure on suppliers to cut costs. Investigations have documented forced overtime, wage theft (paying below legal minimums or withholding wages entirely), restriction of movement, and confiscation of identity documents in garment factories across multiple countries. In the UK, a 2020 investigation found workers in Leicester garment factories earning as little as £3.50 per hour, less than half the legal minimum wage, producing clothing for Boohoo.

Electronics. From Mines to Assembly Lines

The electronics industry faces forced labor risks at both ends of its supply chain: in the extraction of raw materials (cobalt, tin, tantalum, tungsten, rare earth elements) and in the assembly of finished products.

Rare Earth Minerals

China controls approximately 60% of global rare earth mining and 90% of rare earth processing. Reports from human rights organizations have documented forced labor in rare earth processing facilities, including the use of Uyghur workers transferred from Xinjiang under conditions that meet international definitions of forced labor. Rare earth elements are essential for magnets in smartphones, wind turbines, and electric vehicle motors.

Assembly Line Conditions

Foxconn, the world’s largest electronics contract manufacturer and a primary assembler of Apple products, faced international scrutiny following a cluster of worker suicides at its Shenzhen facility in 2010. Subsequent investigations by China Labor Watch and other organizations documented excessive overtime (up to 80 hours per month, exceeding legal limits), student labor programs that amounted to forced labor, and management practices including public humiliation. Foxconn installed suicide nets on its buildings and raised wages, but labor rights organizations continue to document violations at its facilities across China.

Palm Oil. Malaysia & Indonesia

Palm oil is the world’s most widely used vegetable oil, found in approximately 50% of packaged products sold in supermarkets. Malaysia and Indonesia produce approximately 85% of the global supply. Both countries’ palm oil industries have been repeatedly linked to forced labor, child labor, and trafficking.

Forced Labor on Plantations

In 2020, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued Withhold Release Orders (WROs) against two major Malaysian palm oil producers, FGV Holdings (the world’s largest crude palm oil producer) and Sime Darby Plantation, based on evidence of forced labor indicators including debt bondage, restriction of movement, withholding of wages, and retention of identity documents of migrant workers from Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and the Philippines.

Workers on palm oil plantations are frequently recruited through labor brokers who charge exorbitant fees, placing workers in debt bondage before they begin work. Workers’ passports are confiscated upon arrival, and they are housed in company-controlled housing on remote plantations with no access to transport. The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), an industry certification body, has been criticized for failing to detect or address these conditions among its certified members.

Uyghur Forced Labor

The Chinese government’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims and other Turkic minorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has been documented as the largest state-sponsored forced labor program operating in the 21st century. An estimated 1 million or more Uyghurs have been detained in internment camps since 2017, and a parallel system of “labor transfer” programs has placed hundreds of thousands of Uyghur workers in factories across China under conditions that meet international definitions of forced labor.

Cotton

Xinjiang produces approximately 85% of China’s cotton and roughly 20% of the global supply. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) documented Uyghur workers transferred to cotton fields and textile factories under government-organized programs that restrict freedom of movement, impose political indoctrination, and surveil workers continuously. In January 2021, CBP issued a region-wide WRO on all cotton and tomato products from Xinjiang.

Polysilicon & Solar Panels

Xinjiang produces approximately 35% of the world’s polysilicon; the key raw material for solar panels. Sheffield Hallam University’s Helena Kennedy Centre published a 2021 report identifying forced labor in Xinjiang’s polysilicon production, creating a direct tension between the global clean energy transition and human rights. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), signed into law in December 2021, established a rebuttable presumption that all goods from Xinjiang are produced with forced labor, shifting the burden of proof to importers.

Corporate Accountability & Legal Frameworks

A growing body of legislation now requires corporations to address forced labor in their supply chains (see also Corporate Accountability), though enforcement remains inconsistent and penalties are generally weak.

Key Legislation

• California Transparency in Supply Chains Act (2010): Requires companies with over $100 million in revenue to disclose efforts to eradicate slavery and trafficking from supply chains. No penalties for inaction; only for failure to disclose.
• UK Modern Slavery Act (2015): Requires companies with turnover exceeding £36 million to publish annual statements on supply chain due diligence. Compliance is self-reported with minimal enforcement.
• French Duty of Vigilance Law (2017): Requires large French companies to establish and implement due diligence plans addressing human rights and environmental risks. Notably, it creates civil liability for failure to prevent harm.
• EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (2024): Requires large EU companies to identify, prevent, and mitigate human rights and environmental impacts across their value chains, with potential fines up to 5% of global turnover.
• Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (2021): Creates a rebuttable presumption that goods from Xinjiang involve forced labor; strongest enforcement mechanism of any supply chain law.

Sources & Further Reading