Globalization negatively impacts the labor standards behind the products we use. We evaluate the potential impact of supply chain regulations, like the EU’s CSDDD, using a model of 30 million EU firms to map the likelihood of human rights abuses within the supply chain network. Our model demonstrates a “small world effect” within the network, with most firms only three steps away from each other. This means that over 80% of EU companies likely have child or forced labor within two tiers of their supply chain. We conclude that CSDDD regulations, which focus on individual buyer-supplier links, are likely ineffective due to network redundancy; monitoring individual suppliers would be a more cost-effective approach to comprehensive due diligence.