Sourcemap, a global provider of supply chain transparency and traceability software, has launched a Forced Labor Compliance Platform to assist US firms in meeting increasing human rights standards ahead of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act's nearing deadline (ULFPA).

To far, over 3,000 companies have signed up for Sourcemap's Forced Labor Compliance Platform in anticipation of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (ULFPA) enforcement deadline on June 21.

According to Sourcemap, the Forced Labor Compliance Platform (FLCP) is important to handling the end-to-end due diligence reporting requirements of the UFLPA, which is likely to increase scrutiny on the garment industry among others.

The UFLPA seeks to exclude items from entering the US if they were created entirely or partially in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) or using Uyghur labor elsewhere in China.

According to Sourcemap, the Forced Labor Compliance Platform was created expressly to assist enterprises in overcoming the "chain of custody difficulty" - showing they can trace items from raw material to US import – by gathering verifiable documentation of the entities inside their supply chains. This involves supplier discovery (identifying all supply chain players), transaction traceability (tracking each batch of raw material as it is processed into completed items), and validation, which includes scanning suppliers for risk of fraud, waste, and abuse.

ohn Foote, partner and head of the customs practice at Kelley Drye & Warren LLP and author of the newsletter, Forced Labor & Trade, said that under the UFLPA, one of the most critical and challenging questions that every importer will face is, 'What do you know about the companies in your whole supply chain?" and 'What documentation can you give about how imported items were manufactured, whole or partially?

The Forced Labor Compliance Platform combines Sourcemap's supplier network discovery capabilities – which assist companies in mapping their supply chains all the way down to raw material suppliers – with powerful traceability capabilities that verify the chain of custody for every container entering a US port. The platform provides retailers, manufacturers, and brands with a deeper knowledge of their suppliers, ranging from Tier 1 to Tier N, and provides evidence of origin for imported goods, as required by US law.

Sourcemap founder and CEO Leonardo Bonanni recently testified before the US Senate Finance Committee on technologies for forced labor enforcement, said that forced labor and the global supply chain are inextricably linked. As suppliers look to de-risk their supply chains and comply with upcoming ESG and trade rules, their platform is poised to become the de facto standard for supply chain transparency and traceability.