The EU is officially banning products made with forced labor

Getting products manufactured using forced labor into the European common market just got tougher, per a provisional agreement between the European Union Council and the European Parliament.

According to the agreement, items made outside the EU using forced labor or manufactured within the EU with parts produced abroad using forced labor will be banned.

The ultimate goal is to destroy the business models of these companies, Pierre-Yves Dermagne, Belgium’s Economy and Labour Minister, said in a statement.

“With this regulation we want to make sure that there is no place for their products on our single market, whether they are manufactured in Europe or abroad,” he said.

The agreement, which still needs final approval by the European Parliament and Council, has been in the works for a while. The EU Commission first proposed the ban in September 2022. While it didn’t specify a country, it followed a call by the European Parliament for a similar law in June 2022 that cited human rights concerns in Xinjiang, China, Reuters reported.

China has faced criticism for alleged abuses of ethnic Uyghurs, a Muslim minority group. In 2021, that led to about 190 organizations across 36 countries issuing a call to action pressuring clothing retailers to terminate production there.

Investigations around labor abuses have also occurred in the US. Just last year, for instance, a Labor Department survey of more than 50 garment-sewing contractors and manufacturers in Southern California found potential violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 80% of cases.