The U.S. Senate is considering a bill that aims to eradicate slave labor from large U.S. companies’ global supply networks by establishing new corporate supply chain disclosure requirements, mandating regular audits and instituting penalties for failing to meet what’s described as minimum standards for human rights.

Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, last week introduced the Slave-Free Business Certification Act. A previous version that Hawley tried to advance in 2020 never made it to a vote.

If enacted as currently envisioned, the legislation would apply to companies that generate at least $500 million in annual revenue and that operate in mining, manufacturing and/or production of products that range from clothes to smartphones. Certain larger promotional products companies would be subject to the legislation.

“The scourge of global slave labor must end and multinational corporations complicit in this moral atrocity must be held accountable,” Hawley said in a statement.

“Not only is the continued existence of forced labor a moral atrocity,” a release from his office further stated, “but such practices deeply harm American workers and domestic producers by forcing them to compete on an uneven playing field against cheap, imported goods produced with exploitation.”

The bill would require subject companies to complete an annual audit to investigate their supply chains for use of forced labor. This would include assessments of direct suppliers, secondary suppliers and on-site service providers.

Companies would then have to submit audit results, along with information on what they have done to eradicate forced labor from supply networks, to the U.S. Secretary of Labor. Reports would have to be posted publicly on companies’ websites, with an easily accessible link from the home page.

CEOs would have to sign off on the audits, certifying that every effort was made to conduct the study in conformance with the act and that no instances of slave labor were identified.

The legislation allows the federal government to levy civil damages of not more than $100 million and punitive damages of not more than $500 million for violations.

“This bill is an important step toward ending the use of forced labor by holding businesses accountable for the workers used throughout their supply chains,” Gillibrand said in a statement.

Attention on forced labor has intensified in the last couple of years as widespread reports alleging the use of slave labor in China’s Xinjiang region have come to the fore. The United States recently banned imports from Xinjiang over forced labor concerns. Hawley’s legislation does not mention China specifically; it would apply to U.S. companies’ supply chains regardless of where they may be.

It’s unclear when the Senate will give further consideration to the Slave-Free Business Certification Act. As of this writing, it had just been introduced and no further action taken.