WORKERS’ RIGHTS
Across the globe, an estimated 25 million people are trapped in forced labor, toiling in industries from cocoa to seafood to beef production. Under international law, forced labor occurs when work is performed “under the menace of penalty” and without consent. In reality, it often means workers are coerced through threats, withheld wages or documents, debt bondage, and other forms of exploitation to endure long hours in unsafe, degrading conditions for little or no pay. At the same time, 79 million children are engaged in hazardous labor: wielding machetes, hauling heavy loads, exposed to toxic pesticides, scaling trees without safety equipment, using heavy machinery and performing other dangerous tasks that strip them of their health, education, and childhood.
These abuses are not isolated accidents or lapses in oversight. Exploitative labor practices are embedded in the structure of the global economy—a system from which corporations in the Global North continue to profit. Multinational companies drive costs down by paying suppliers unsustainably low prices, forcing factories, farms, and fisheries to cut corners wherever possible—even when it means relying on illegal and abusive forms of labor.
In response, CAL is developing new legal and policy tools to combat forced labor in global supply chains. Since its founding, CAL has pioneered new uses of the U.S. Tariff Act of 1930 to block imports made with forced labor, filed groundbreaking lawsuits, and submitted amicus briefs to the Supreme Court on cases involving forced labor and hazardous child labor. CAL partners with law school clinics, international civil society organizations, and directly engages with affected communities through investigations, convenings, and long-term relationship building..
Each of these efforts serves a single, urgent purpose: to hold corporations accountable and end the exploitation of workers driven by cost-cutting, downward pricing pressure, and corporate impunity—restoring dignity, fairness, and justice to the global economy.
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Although some think of chattel slavery as a practice of the past, it is a daily reality for far too many. In Mauritania, there are an estimated 149,000 individuals still enslaved, out of a population of under five million. In addition to raising alarming concerns for human rights accountability over private individuals perpetrating slavery in Mauritania, this reality brings to light important issues for companies who source agricultural goods from local farmers who have historically relied on slave labor. These companies’ responsibilities are heightened in a country with a deep-rooted legacy of slavery.