U.S. Labor Department blacklists Russian pornography

Yesterday, the U.S. department of Labor published an updated list of "products that federal contractors must certify under… are not produced with forced or indentured child labor." The list is maintained with the reasonable goal of making sure that "federal agencies do not buy products made with forced or indentured child labor." The list includes ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.

Yesterday, the U.S. department of Labor published an updated list of "products that federal contractors must certify under... are not produced with forced or indentured child labor." The list is maintained with the reasonable goal of making sure that "federal agencies do not buy products made with forced or indentured child labor." The list includes some usual suspects like Chinese toys, Indian textiles and diamonds from Sierra Leone. But as the Moscow Times's Alexander Bratersky noticed, it also includes Russian pornography

Yesterday, the U.S. department of Labor published an updated list of "products that federal contractors must certify under… are not produced with forced or indentured child labor." The list is maintained with the reasonable goal of making sure that "federal agencies do not buy products made with forced or indentured child labor." The list includes some usual suspects like Chinese toys, Indian textiles and diamonds from Sierra Leone. But as the Moscow Times‘s Alexander Bratersky noticed, it also includes Russian pornography

Child pornography may be a problem in Russia, but, as Bratersky notes, the list raises that question of why the U.S. government would want contractors to provide pornography of any type or nationality. Bratersky wasn’t able to get any answers out of the department but I’m sure the investigation will continue.  

Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

Tag: Russia

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