So Hey, Big Corporations Want to Hide Their Ties to Slavery and Child Abuse
Oops, I mean “forced labor.”
Just in case you missed it, the AP reported on a bunch of US businesses that want to restrict the data collected from cargo vessel manifests to keep it confidential. This was put forth in a proposal to US Customs and Border Protection by a collection of big businesses as a way to “streamline trade regulations.”
You can read that document here if you want — it’s three pages and the pertinent bit is toward the bottom of the third page. In case you’re not really into government documents and policy, the text reads as follows:
19 USC § 1431(c) — Automatically treat manifest and Customs declaration data of all transportation modes as private and confidential business information.
In a nutshell, this is really bad because journalists and others use these manifests to hold big corporations accountable for worker mistreatment, including forced labor, human trafficking, child labor, and general mistreatment. So basically, slavery, slavery, child slavery, and exploitation of low-wage workers in countries without adequate labor protection laws
This is kind of a big deal. Per the article, ocean freight makes up about half of the goods entering the US every year, with around…
