Brands that use child labor, or more precisely brands whose supply chains have been credibly tied to it, include Nestlé, Hershey, Mars, and Cargill in cocoa; Apple, Alphabet, Dell, Microsoft, and Tesla in cobalt for batteries; Shein in fast fashion; and Starbucks in coffee. Each has been named in lawsuits, federal reports, or its own internal audits. The International Labour Organization estimates that about 138 million children are still trapped in child labor worldwide, 54 million of them in work classified as hazardous.1International Labour Organization. Child Labour Global Estimates 2024 Trends and the Road Forward The products touch nearly every American household.
Named Brands by Industry
Chocolate and Cocoa
Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana produce roughly 60 percent of the world’s cocoa, and more than 1.5 million children work on cocoa farms in those two countries.2U.S. Department of Labor. Ending Child Labor in Cocoa Production Children on these farms use machetes to split pods, carry loads beyond their physical capacity, and handle pesticides without protective gear. Nestlé, Hershey, Mars, and Cargill have all faced repeated lawsuits and investigations tied to these farms. A voluntary industry agreement signed in 2001 committed the major chocolate companies to a 70 percent reduction in the worst forms of child labor in cocoa by 2020. The industry missed that target by a wide margin.3U.S. Department of Labor. CLCCG Report 2010-2020 Efforts to Reduce Child Labor in Cocoa
A 2024 consumer lawsuit against Starbucks alleged that its “100% ethical” coffee sourcing marketing was misleading, pointing to documented child labor and slavery-like conditions on farms carrying Starbucks’s own certification.
Electronics and Electric Vehicles
Cobalt is essential for the rechargeable batteries in smartphones, laptops, and electric vehicles, and much of it comes from hand-dug mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo where children work in narrow, unreinforced tunnels. A 2019 federal class action under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act named Apple, Alphabet (Google), Dell, Microsoft, and Tesla, alleging they knowingly sourced cobalt from mines where children had been killed or maimed.4International Rights Advocates. John Doe I et al v Apple Alphabet Google Dell Microsoft and Tesla
Fast Fashion and Garments
Children in textile supply chains across South and Southeast Asia operate heavy machinery, handle toxic dyes, and work in poorly ventilated facilities to meet fast production cycles. Shein’s own 2023 sustainability report acknowledged finding child labor cases at its supplier factories, with violations turning up in a small share of the nearly 4,000 audits it conducted that year. The federal list of goods believed to be produced with child or forced labor cites garments, textiles, bricks, and footwear among the most frequently flagged manufactured items.5U.S. Department of Labor. List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor
Seafood
Fishing vessels can stay at sea for months or years, making the seafood sector uniquely difficult to monitor. Workers on these vessels, including children, face physical abuse, excessive overtime, and nonpayment of wages with no realistic way to escape. A congressional report identified 29 countries at highest risk for human trafficking in the seafood sector.6NOAA Fisheries. Forced Labor and the Seafood Supply Chain The isolation makes these operations far harder to regulate than land-based factories, and the fish moves through processors before it ever reaches a brand name on a package.
Solar Panels
A significant share of the world’s polysilicon, the key material in solar cells, originates in China’s Xinjiang region, which the federal government has flagged for forced labor concerns. Over 140 entities across textiles, solar, and mining connected to Xinjiang now appear on a federal enforcement list that blocks their goods from entering the United States.7Federal Register. Notice Regarding the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List
What Courts Have Actually Decided
Being named in a lawsuit is not the same as being found liable, and in the two biggest cases the brands walked.
In Nestlé USA, Inc. v. Doe, six individuals from Mali sued Nestlé and Cargill under the Alien Tort Statute, alleging the companies aided and abetted child slavery on Ivorian cocoa farms by providing technical and financial support. The Supreme Court reversed the lower court in 2021, holding that the plaintiffs could not sue because nearly all the conduct at issue occurred abroad. General allegations that corporate decisions were made in the United States were not enough. The Court said creating a new legal remedy for these circumstances was Congress’s job, not the judiciary’s.8Legal Information Institute. Nestle USA Inc v Doe
The cobalt case followed the same path. Despite graphic evidence of children killed and injured in mine collapses, the D.C. Circuit dismissed the case in 2024, ruling the plaintiffs had not shown Apple, Alphabet, Dell, Microsoft, or Tesla directly participated in the alleged forced labor. The outcomes don’t clear the brands. They show that the current legal framework makes it very difficult to hold U.S. companies liable for abuses committed by foreign suppliers several links down the chain.
The Starbucks case takes a different angle. It targets the marketing rather than the labor conditions, asking whether “100% ethical” claims violate consumer protection laws when the certified farms have documented abuses. That theory sidesteps the extraterritoriality problem that sank the cocoa and cobalt suits.
Why Brands Can Honestly Say They Didn’t Know
Global supply chains are organized in layers. The factory a brand contracts with directly, the Tier 1 supplier, handles final assembly and is the most visible part of the chain. That factory buys components from Tier 2 suppliers, which in turn source raw materials from Tier 3 or Tier 4 operations. Child labor concentrates at the bottom of the pyramid, on the farms, in the mines, and in the small workshops that sit farthest from the corporate offices that ultimately profit from their output.
Unauthorized subcontracting makes it worse. When a factory can’t meet a deadline, it quietly shifts orders to smaller, unregulated workshops that operate outside any formal agreement. Those shadow facilities are where the most severe abuses tend to occur, and they are invisible during scheduled inspections. A brand can hold a clean Tier 1 audit file while the actual production runs through back rooms no auditor has ever seen.
Even the audits themselves have well-documented blind spots. The Department of Labor’s own guidance on social auditing notes that audits scheduled in advance let managers hide violations beforehand, workers interviewed in front of supervisors are unlikely to report abuse, and audits are particularly ineffective in regions where forced labor is embedded in government policy.9U.S. Department of Labor. Key Topic What Is Social Auditing Effective audits require unannounced visits and private interviews. Many corporate programs meet neither condition.
What the U.S. Government Blocks at the Border
Where lawsuits have struggled, import bans have real teeth. Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930 flatly prohibits importing goods made with forced labor, including forced child labor, and directs Customs and Border Protection to enforce that prohibition.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 19 USC 1307 – Convict-Made Goods Importation Prohibited CBP enforces this through Withhold Release Orders, which stop specific shipments at the border. The agency currently maintains 54 active Withhold Release Orders, with a forced labor entry value of roughly $74.9 million in the current fiscal year.11U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Forced Labor Enforcement
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, in effect since June 2022, goes further. It creates a legal presumption that any goods mined, produced, or manufactured in China’s Xinjiang region are made with forced labor and cannot enter the United States.12U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Statistics The importer has to prove otherwise with clear and convincing evidence, a deliberately high bar. To overcome the presumption, an importer must fully comply with federal guidance, respond to CBP information requests, and document that the goods were not produced with forced labor.13Department of Homeland Security. UFLPA FAQs The law currently covers 144 entities spanning cotton and textiles, polysilicon and solar components, mining, and food processing.7Federal Register. Notice Regarding the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List
These border tools don’t punish brands directly. They stop the goods, which forces brands to change sourcing if they want to keep selling in the U.S. market.
How to Check a Brand Before You Buy
The Department of Labor publishes a searchable list of 204 goods from 82 countries that the government has reason to believe are produced with child or forced labor.5U.S. Department of Labor. List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor The agency also offers a free app called Sweat & Toil that lets you search by product or country. Neither tool will tell you whether a specific brand is clean, but both will tell you which products and regions carry the highest risk.
Independent certifications offer product-level checks that brands can’t grade themselves.
- The Fair Labor Association assesses member companies’ factories against its Workplace Code of Conduct using independent assessors.14Fair Labor Association. Factory Assessments Overview
- GoodWeave, founded in 1994 by Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi, certifies rugs and home textiles as free of child, forced, and bonded labor.15GoodWeave. GoodWeave Certification Label Builds Partnerships in Rug and Home Textile Sector
- Fairtrade International’s standard for hired labor requires decent wages, the right to join a union, and health and safety protections on plantations and in factories supplying Fairtrade-certified products.16Fairtrade International. Fairtrade Standard for Hired Labour
These certifications are credible but narrow. A Fairtrade label on a chocolate bar means that supply chain was audited. It says nothing about the same brand’s other products.
The most practical habit is skepticism toward vague marketing. When a company says its products are “ethically sourced” or “responsibly made,” check whether it backs the claim with specific disclosures. Companies with more than $100 million in annual worldwide gross receipts doing business in California, and companies with £36 million or more in turnover doing business in the UK, are required to publish supply chain statements online.17GOV.UK. Publish an Annual Modern Slavery Statement If the disclosure is a single vague paragraph, that tells you something. If it describes specific audit programs, supplier requirements, and remediation processes, that tells you something different. The disclosures aren’t always honest, but they give you a baseline to compare against the brand’s public claims.