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