H&M, Gap, Inditex And Nike Among Major Brands Implicated In Report On Useage Of Uyghur Forced Labour In Xinjiang

Image Courtesy of PXhere

Members of China’s Uyghur ethnic minority are being used as forced labor in factories far from the so-called reeducation camps that have held them for years in Xinjiang, according to an extensive new report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), a think-tank founded by Australia’s government.

Between 2017 and 2019, ASPI estimates the Chinese government relocated at least 80,000 Uyghurs from Xinjiang in western China to factories across the country where they work “under conditions that strongly suggest forced labour.”

What’s more, it says the manufacturers using these transported Uyghurs supply at least 83 international companies making everything from footwear to textiles to electronics.

In March 2020, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) published a report Uyghurs for sale: ‘Re-education’, forced labour and surveillance beyond Xinjiang, which identified 83 foreign and Chinese companies as allegedly directly or indirectly benefiting from the use of Uyghur workers outside Xinjiang through potentially abusive labour transfer programs. 

ASPI estimates at least 80,000 Uyghurs were transferred out of Xinjiang and assigned to factories in a range of supply chains including electronics, textiles, and automotives under a central government policy known as ‘Xinjiang Aid’.

The report identified 27 factories in nine Chinese provinces that are using Uyghur labour transferred from Xinjiang since 2017.

There have been widespread denials from the companies involved, saying that their production audits are clean, but, the audit system ,according to New York’s Stern School, is a top-down system where companies check in on supplier factories in search of violations but often miss the systemic causes leading factories to skirt the rules in the first place.

One direct link documented in the report involved Nike.

As of January 2020, about 600 workers from Xinjiang were employed at one of its largest suppliers: Qingdao Taekwang Shoes Co. Ltd., which produces more than 7 million pairs of shoes for Nike annually, according to ASPI.

In a story tied to the research,

the factory makes shoes from Nike’s signature Air line and eight other styles.

Located in Laixi to the north of Qingdao in eastern China, it’s far from Xinjiang. The transported workers—mostly young Uyghur women—did not elect to go there.

There are cameras and barbed-wire all around the factory, and in the evenings they attend night school where they learn Mandarin and receive “patriotic education.”