The world needs a Five Eyes to fight modern slavery

Twenty-seven million forced laborers make many of the goods we all consume. Forced labor, a form of modern slavery, is a horrific abuse of human rights and one that governments around the world, including the U.S., have committed to eliminate. To date, they are making poor progress.

Forced labor is not just immoral — it’s also anti-competitive. Goods made by forced labor are often cheaper than those made by the willing.

Its spread through global supply chains is extraordinary. For example, an investigation found forced labor “rife” in Indian plants processing shrimp for North America. Earlier in the year, thousands of Audi, Bentley and Porsche vehicles were impounded by U.S. customs because they contained a component that reportedly breached the country’s prohibition on imports made by forced labor.

For these reasons, it’s time for countries to step up the fight and prevent the import of goods made through this horrific practice.

Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the U.S. have shared intelligence via the Five Eyes alliance since the 1940s. A similar though much cheaper arrangement could help them tackle forced labor.

The U.S. has shown that tweaks to the law and some funding can lead to the detention of large volumes of suspect goods. It technically banned the import of goods made by forced labor in 1890, but loopholes rendered the ban ineffective. In 2016 President Obama closed the gaps, and the value of shipments detained skyrocketed, from a few hundred thousand dollars in 2015 to half a billion in 2021.

The 2021 Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which requires U.S. customs to treat goods originating from China’s Xinjiang region as the product of forced labor, has further fueled seizures, such that $1.4 billion of goods were detained in the law’s first year. Expect import detentions to continue growing in the coming years.

While preventing the import of all goods made by forced labor is impossible, the U.S. experience demonstrates that a properly implemented ban can have a significant impact. The risk that an import may be detained, and the importer fined, motivates companies to conduct human rights due diligence with respect to their suppliers. This in turn drives companies to identify and address labor abuse at farms and factories worldwide.

Canada, New Zealand and the UK have the legal mechanisms required to prevent the import of goods made by forced labor, but they have made poor use of them.

In 2020 Canada committed, through the free trade U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, to prohibit the import of goods made by forced labor. To date, it has only detained one shipment of suspect goods. 

The UK’s record is even more pitiful. There’s little evidence that its 126-year-long ban on imports made by prison labor has ever been enforced. New Zealand has prohibited the import of goods made by prison labor since 1908 and has actually detained some suspect goods over the years.

Canada, New Zealand and the UK may soon get their act together. A new law will oblige companies in Canada to report on the steps taken to eradicate forced labor from their supply chains. In the UK, a bill to prohibit the import of products made by forced labor in Xinjiang is making its way through parliament. The country’s National Crime Agency has also indicated a willingness to investigate forced labor imports under the Proceeds of Crime Act. Last year, New Zealand published a draft modern slavery law, which will impose mandatory supply chain due diligence obligations on companies.

In most cases, suspect goods will be shipped to multiple Five Eyes countries. Take, for example, the case of printer manufacturer Ninestar, which the U.S. alleges is using Uyghur forced labor. Most of its goods are now banned from the U.S., yet they are widely available in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK.

A lack of intelligence is holding back enforcement. A recent New Zealand government report noted that the country “does not currently have capability to monitor prison labor regimes of other countries (nor assess whether the conditions in those regimes amount to forced labor).”

The U.S. experience demonstrates that it’s possible to interdict significant numbers of suspect goods. An alliance would make the task more efficient and effective. Member countries could conduct joint investigations and gather data together. This would lower the cost of enforcement for each country and widen the breadth of investigations.

While international organizations for facilitating police investigation, such as Interpol, exist, they are not ideal for the trade investigation required to enforce import bans.

The five countries can and should also cooperate with governments outside Five Eyes. However, given the common language, similar legal systems and existing intelligence-sharing framework, it’s an obvious place to start.

Countries need to step up the fight against forced labor. Collaboration will facilitate this.

Oliver Cushing is the CEO of the human rights technology, consultancy and training company RightsDD.