Japanese retailers Muji and Uniqlo have come under criticism recently for sourcing cotton from Xinjiang, where the Chinese government has reportedly interned more than a million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities, including Kazakhs and Kyrgyz.
Wall Street Journal reported back in May on a bevvy of companies whose supply chains run through Xinjiang. Various reports and testimonies indicate that Uyghurs and others released from camps are fed into the region’s factories. A number of the companies mentioned in the WSJ and subsequent reports have previously signed a pledge to not knowingly source cotton from Uzbekistan due to forced labor in the country’s cotton industry. A number of factors distinguish the cases of Uzbekistan and Xinjiang — not the least of which is the sheer scale and motivation of forced labor in Xinjiang — but the underlying corporate responsibility to not contribute to human rights abuses is a thread worth following.
Last month, Chairman of the Board of the Uyghur Human Rights Project Nury Turkel testified for before the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China. “It is becoming increasingly hard to ignore the fact that goods manufactured in East Turkistan [the Uyghur term for the Xinjiang region] have a high likelihood of being produced with forced labor,” he said.
An early November Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) report noted that two Japanese retailers, Muji and Uniqlo, “raised eyebrows for spruiking ‘Xinjiang Cotton’ products.”
Muji, for example, launched a “Xinjiang Cotton Collection” on May 17 (as the ABC pointed out, the day after the report came out). Uniqlo, meanwhile, noted in a since-removed advertisement for a button-down that the product was “Made from Xinjiang Cotton, famous for its superb quality.”
Both companies responded to the ABC’s questions: Muji pointed to internal standards, including prohibitions on forced labor, and a planned internal investigation; Uniqlo stated that it “does not have any production partners located in the Xinjiang area.” Even while both companies mentioned Xinjiang in advertisements, there’s a motivation on the corporate level to distance the companies from allegations of forced labor.
Cotton is a labor-intensive crop. While mechanization has revolutionized cotton picking in much of the West, in countries where cotton is picked by hand, forced labor continues to be a problem. In Xinjiang, where raw cotton is also processed into yarn and cloth, as well as finished goods, the risk of forced labor exists at multiple steps in the creation of a product.
In Central Asia, Uzbekistan has been at the heart of a global campaign to stamp out the use of forced labor in its cotton sector. Under the Cotton Campaign’s Uzbek Cotton Pledge, more than 300 signatory companies have committed to “not knowingly source Uzbek cotton for the manufacturing of any of our products until the Government of Uzbekistan ends the practice of forced child and adult labor in its cotton sector.”
Since the death of Uzbekistan’s first president, Islam Karimov, the government of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has engaged in a broad reform program. One of the most noticeable aspects of this reform push has been the opening of engagement with human rights activists focused on forced labor in the cotton sector. On November 1, the Cotton Campaign commented in a press release that the group’s engagement with the government has deepened positively. Earlier this year, Uzbekistan pushed for the lifting of the pledge and the boycott of Uzbek cotton, citing progress in eradicating forced child labor and increased government activity to prevent and punish forced adult labor.
This has not happened yet, with activists noting that the pledge promises to stay in place until forced labor is ended. Nevertheless, the market pressure generated by the pledge has had considerable impact.
Among the companies cited by the May report as having supply chains that run through Xinjiang, there are several that have signed on to the Uzbek Cotton Pledge including Adidas, H & M, Gap Inc., and Uniqlo. While the pledge is narrowly targeted at Uzbek cotton, the concept of corporate responsibility that underlines the pledge’s commitments could arguably be extended to China and Xinjiang.
There are considerable differences however, between cases of forced labor in Uzbekistan and Xinjiang.
Πηγή: thediplomat.com