Let's have a closer look at the "complex algorithm that determines the minimum number of slaves [...] used to produce each product" [1]. The basic data is suppo

Let's have a closer look at the "complex algorithm that determines the minimum number of slaves [...] used to produce each product" [1]. The basic data is supposedly taken from five official reports, but only one of these (the one they call "DOL" [2]) has anything direct to do with production of goods by forced labor. Examining this report, it provides nothing more than a list of countries and goods for which forced labor plays a "significant" part, where significant is defined as anything but "an isolated incident of child labor or forced labor" ([2] p.7). There is no quantitative data in this list, which means that, for instance, if you own a T-shirt made of Argentinian cotton, there's no telling whether the probability this cotton was handled by a child laborer is 90% or 0.1%. Thus it is impossible to estimate any number of "slaves" from such data, and the methodology is complete and utter BS. [1] http://slaveryfootprint.org/about/#methodology http://slaveryfootprint.org/about/#methodology [2] http://www.dol.gov/ilab/programs/ocft/pdf/2010TVPRA.pdf http://www.dol.gov/ilab/programs/ocft/pdf/2010TVPRA.pdf