Cablegate: Gor Response to Child Labor Lists

VZCZCXRO4761
PP RUEHDBU RUEHHM RUEHJO RUEHLN RUEHPOD RUEHSK RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHMO #2693 3031414
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 301414Z OCT 09
FM AMEMBASSY MOSCOW
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 5238
INFO RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHXI/LABOR COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHXD/MOSCOW POLITICAL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY

UNCLAS MOSCOW 002693

SIPDIS

STATE FOR EUR/RUS, DRL
DOL FOR BRUMFIELD

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ELAB ECON EIND PGOV SOCI RS
SUBJECT: GOR RESPONSE TO CHILD LABOR LISTS

REF: SECSTATE 92560

1. (U) Per reftel, on September 9 Post delivered a demarche
to Nikolai Smirnov, Deputy Director of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs'
North America Department, on the release of the Department of
Labor's list of goods from countries that the Bureau of
International Labor Affairs has reason to believe are
produced by forced labor or child labor in violation of
international standards; the proposed update to the 2001 list
of products that might have been mined, produced, or
manufactured by forced or indentured child labor; and the
2008 Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor.

2. (U) On October 23, we received the following written
response from Smirnov:

With regard to your letter from September 9 concerning the
preliminary publication by the Department of Labor of the
annual report on the use of forced labor and child labor in
different countries and the inclusion of Russia on the list
of such countries because of child pornography production, I
would like to communicate the following information:

In the Russian legal system, child pornography is not
considered in terms of an economic category (in terms of a
good), but is a result of criminally liable action. The use
of children to prepare pornographic products is not "child
labor," that is, an allowed form of children's economic
activity, but rather a crime against minors.
Beyrle

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