List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor

There are reports that children are forced to work in the production of sugarcane in Burma. Forced child labor is found in the Thaton District, and particularly in areas near military camps. An NGO study documents villagers, including children, mobilized by the dozens each day from multiple villages to work during labor intensive times of the sugarcane production. The children are forced to cut trees and dig out the stumps to prepare the fields, plant the sugarcane, then mill and boil the sugarcane after it is harvested. They are not paid for their work. 

Burmese Translation

There are reports that children are forced to work in the production of teak in Burma. Forced child labor is found on teak plantations in the Thaton District, and particularly in areas near military camps. An NGO study reports that villagers, including children, from multiple villages are regularly mobilized by the military for forced labor to cultivate teak and other crops. The forced laborers are not paid for their work. 

Burmese Translation

There are reports that adults are forced to work in the fishing industry in Burma. Reports from NGOs, researchers, and media organizations indicate that adults in the Ayeyarwady Delta region of southern Burma are coerced onto fishing rafts, where they are forced to remain for most of the year. The majority of the roughly 40,000 people employed in the raft fishing industry are in forced labor. Workers often face excessive, unpaid overtime, physical and verbal violence by supervisors, physical confinement on the rafts, inflated debts, and a lack of adequate food and drinking water. Some sources report cases in which workers are coerced by labor brokers into drinking alcohol to the point of intoxication; labor brokers then put workers on rafts while they are unable to refuse.

Burmese Translation

There is evidence that children between the ages of 5 and 14 engage in the production of bovines in Cambodia.  In Cambodia, bovines are primarily used for domestic consumption and for farming purposes, and are raised by approximately 1.4 million smallholders primarily located in provinces bordering the Mekong River, with a heavy concentration found in the southern rice-producing provinces.  Based on analysis of the 2016 Cambodian Socio-Economic Survey, an estimated 59,693 children are involved in child labor in the production of bovines.  The release of this survey demonstrates the Government of Cambodia’s commitment to addressing child labor and its acknowledgment that data collection is vital to the design and implementation of sound policies and programs.

Khmer Translation

There are reports that children are forced to produce bricks in Cambodia. According to international researchers and NGOs, numerous incidents of forced child labor have been reported in Cambodia. Reports estimate over 9.3 percent of brick workers are children. However, with upwards of tens of thousands of workers employed at brick kilns and the casual nature of work in brick kilns, this number is likely higher. A cycle of multi-generational debt bondage is created when adults are unable to pay back the high interest charged on loans offered by brick kiln owners and are forced to pass along outstanding debts to their children. Children either inherit or are born into debt bondage and are threatened with arrest or are forced to pay additional debt if they try to leave the brick kiln without repaying their debts in full.

Khmer Translation