President Barack Obama signed a trade bill that went into effect in March which finally banned the importation of products and goods marketed on the backs of slaves.
The prohibition was a tiny part of the massive Congressional bill called The Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015, which effectively severs the supply of seafood caught by Thai slave workers, gold mined by children, and clothing sewn by abused Bangladeshi woman.
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Awareness of slave worker exploitation was brought to light in a report by the Associated Press last year, and since then, more than 2,000 Thai workers have been rescued by officials.
The amendment closes an 85-year-old tariff law loophole that allowed importation of these goods if there was an American demand that could not be filled by other supply lines.
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“It’s embarrassing that for 85 years, the United States let products made with forced labor into this country, and closing this loophole gives the U.S. an important tool to fight global slavery,” Senator Sherrod Brown, who initially proposed the amendment, told the Associated Press.
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