11 December 2024 | By Gerrit-Milena Falker
Opinion
Forced labour must be banned!
The Anti-Forced Labor Regulation is a law passed by Brussels without gaining much public attention but has far-reaching consequences. Goods produced with forced labour are expected to be banned in the European Union by 2028 at the latest. The Commission is building up enormous pressure. Products made with forced labour will simply no longer be marketable. Not only will the import of such products be prohibited, but so will their further processing in the EU, if components produced by forced labour are used. For instance, if a European manufacturer uses cotton for textile production, the entire product is “infected” if this cotton was obtained in China, using forced labour.
Despite the drastic legal consequences, this is one of the greatest achievements of the last EU Commission – and not just the perceived 173rd useless bureaucratic monster with regard to sustainability. The EU wants to abolish “modern slavery” by 2030, and that’s a good thing!
Of course, the retail sector in particular will be severely affected due to the wide range of products it offers and the complexity of its supply chains – and it will initially struggle. This is evident this very week: “‘Italian’ purees in European supermarkets likely to contain Chinese forced-labour tomatoes”, headlines the British broadcaster BBC – and denounces supermarket chains in Germany, including Lidl, Rewe, Penny and Edeka. Their press departments are now busy trying to refute the report concerning “stable isotope methods”, batch numbers, etc. In the future, anyone who cannot provide seamless proof of their supply chain when requested will have to fear for their reputation.
However, examining one’s value chain with regard to possible human rights violations is in any case mandatory in related laws such as the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D) or even the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). Here, the only drawback becomes apparent: The conceptually well-made Anti-Forced Labor Regulation is part of a family of regulations that the EU legislator could have wonderfully combined into a single piece of legislation. Now, however, it is up to the companies to comply with all these overlapping, individual solutions without getting tangled up in sometimes contradictory reporting requirements – to name just one example.
One thing is certain: Human rights cannot be bought; 28 million enslaved people worldwide are 28 million too many – and it is in the best interest of companies to have no blood on their products. In the “tomato puree case”, for example, a report is circulating that a harvest worker in the Chinese Xinjiang region – a stronghold of crimes against the Muslim minority of Uyghurs – was beaten and hung by his hands and feet from the ceiling. No company wants to play with the dirty children. The regulation will soon put a stop to those who have been doing so against their better judgment or even knowingly.
This article was published first in the German newspaper “Lebensmittel Zeitung”: https://www.lebensmittelzeitung.net
About the author:
Gerrit-Milena Falker works as an Editor (Law & Politics) at “Lebensmittel Zeitung” – the most important German weekly B2B newspaper for managers working in the fast-moving consumer goods industry/retail.
