I 
112TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 2759 
To require companies to include in their annual reports to the Securities 
and Exchange Commission a disclosure describing any measures the 
company has taken during the year to identify and address conditions 
of forced labor, slavery, human trafficking, and the worst forms of 
child labor within the company’s supply chains. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
AUGUST 1, 2011 
Mrs. MALONEY (for herself, Mr. SMITH of New Jersey, Ms. SPEIER, and Mr. 
MCGOVERN) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Com-
mittee on Financial Services 
A BILL 
To require companies to include in their annual reports to 
the Securities and Exchange Commission a disclosure 
describing any measures the company has taken during 
the year to identify and address conditions of forced 
labor, slavery, human trafficking, and the worst forms 
of child labor within the company’s supply chains. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE, ETC. 
(a) SHORT TITLE.—This Act may be cited as the 
‘‘Business Transparency on Trafficking and Slavery Act’’. 
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(b) FINDINGS.—Congress finds that— 
(1) in 2010, the Department of Labor identified 
128 goods from 70 countries around the world made 
by forced labor and child labor; 
(2) the United States is the world’s largest im-
porter, and in the twenty-first century, investors, 
consumers, and broader civil society increasingly de-
mand information about the human rights impact of 
products in the United States market; 
(3) in 2010, California enacted the first State 
law requiring manufacturers and retail companies to 
publicly disclose their policies to eradicate slavery, 
forced labor, and human trafficking within their 
supply chains; 
(4) the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, 
which prohibits importation of goods made with 
forced labor or convict labor, has a broad exception 
for goods that cannot be produced in the United 
States in sufficient quantities to meet the demands 
of American consumers; 
(5) courts have also ruled that consumers do 
not have standing to bring a civil action in United 
States courts for enforcement of this provision of the 
Tariff Act, because the legislative intent was to pro-
tect American manufacturers from unfairly priced 
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goods, not to protect consumers from tainted goods, 
consequently, there are fewer than 40 enforcement 
actions on record in the past 80 years; and 
(6) other mechanisms related to slavery and 
trafficking in the stream of commerce suffer from 
similar problems of limited scope, broad exceptions, 
and inability to provide information about specific 
suppliers whose goods are tainted. 
(c) SENSE OF CONGRESS.—It is the sense of Con-
gress that— 
(1) forced labor, slavery, human trafficking and 
the worst forms of child labor are among the most 
egregious forms of abuse that humans commit 
against each other, in the name of commercial prof-
it; 
(2) the legislative and regulatory framework to 
prevent goods produced through forced labor, slav-
ery, human trafficking, and the worst forms of child 
labor from passing into the stream of commerce in 
the United States is gravely inadequate; and 
(3) legislation is necessary to provide the infor-
mation that the public demands, recognizing that 
businesses can be part of the solution to these prob-
lems when they transparently provide information to 
consumers and investors, and subsequently respond 
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