The European Union wants to ban products made from forced labor

by Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Products made from forced labor will be banned from the European Union market, in a future legislative measure that notably targets China’s treatment of Uyghurs, according to a draft by the executive seen by Reuters on Friday.

MEPs have long campaigned for legislation banning forced labor products from a particular importer or company, a particular region in the case of state-sponsored forced labor, a particular production site.

The European Commission’s proposal, to which Ursula van der Leyen committed in September 2021, does not go as far as parliamentarians wanted, due to the legal constraints of such an initiative, in particular its compatibility with the rules of the European Union.

The ban should apply to products for which forced labor has been used at “any stage of their production, manufacture, harvesting or extraction”, the document states.

“The ban should apply to all products, of any type, including their components, and should apply to products regardless of sector, origin, whether domestic or imported, placed available on the Union market or exported”, one can read.

(Foo Yun Chee report; French version Valentine Baldassari, edited by Sophie Louet)