Ugly secrets hiding in the darkest crevices of fashion’s supply chains are being dragged into the light. Last summer, as the sector battled the punishing fallout from the coronavirus crisis, retailers were embroiled in allegations of modern slavery in Leicester garment factories.
Now, widespread reports of forced labour among Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities in China’s Xinjiang region are forcing businesses – and governments – to address yet more examples of exploitation in fashion.
Hundreds of thousands of ethnic minority labourers are being forced to pick Xinjiang’s cotton by hand through coercive government schemes, a report published by research institute the Center for Global Policy revealed last December. There is a long history of discord between the Uyghur people and the Chinese government, which is detaining the ethnic group in “re-education camps”, purportedly to prevent separatist violence.
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Hidden slavery behind your weekly shop with kids as young as 6 sold for £210 & fishermen murdered by crews
Investigation
Updated: 2 Feb 2021, 11:21
WITH an aching back, and hunger pangs ripping through his stomach, 15-year-old Abou Traore uses a heavy machete to hack through the dense brush of a cocoa plantation.
The teenager, who has been working long hours on the farm since the age of ten, is one of 16,000 children forced into child labour in West Africa - so that Brits can enjoy their favourite chocolate bars.
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A nine-year-old child pictured by Unicef working with a machete on a cocoa farmCredit: Mirrorpix
By Kieran Guilbert, Thomson Reuters Foundation
3 Min Read
LONDON, Jan 12 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - British measures to tackle forced labour in China’s Xinjiang region do not go far enough and are “a missed opportunity” to make companies clean up their operations, activists said on Tuesday.
The government said it would introduce rules for businesses aimed at keeping goods from Xinjiang out of supply chains - from guidance on sourcing and a review of export controls to fines for firms that flout a 2015 anti-slavery law.
At least 1 million Uighurs and other minorities are detained in camps in Xinjiang, according to estimates by the United Nations, and many of them are said to be put to work. Beijing denies the charges.
Retailer M&S backs call to stop forced labor in Xinjiang taipeitimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from taipeitimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Britain s M&S backs call to stop forced labour in China s Xinjiang 07 Jan 2021 / 01:29 H.
By Kieran Guilbert
LONDON, Jan 6 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - British retailer Marks & Spencer on Wednesday became one of the first major brands to back a drive to stop forced labour in cotton and garment sourcing from China s Xinjiang region.
M&S signed a call to action by The Coalition to End Forced Labour in the Uyghur Region - consisting of more than 300 civil society groups - to cut ties with suppliers in China that profit from the forced labour of the ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims.