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 ...
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
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