A new investigation by a coalition of international media outlets has uncovered a massive scale of forced labor in China, with tens of thousands of Uyghur workers being sent to factories across the country, often under poor conditions and allegedly under duress.
According to the report, which analyzed over 75 factories in 11 provinces, as well as reviewed party newspaper articles and provincial government statistics, the Uyghur minority is being forced to work in a range of industries, from textiles to electronics. The investigation, conducted by the German weekly Der Spiegel, the New York Times and the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, also analyzed tens of thousands of videos on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, to gather evidence of the labor practices.
The products manufactured in these factories are shipped to Europe, the United States and the rest of the world, with over 145,000 international deliveries tracked by the media through customs databases.
Dr. Adrian Zenz, a German anthropologist who has been researching the suppression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, estimates that around 38,000 Uyghur workers are forcibly relocated to other provinces each year, a number that has been increasing, with around 27,600 cases reported in 2018.
The International Labor Organization (ILO) expert group has concluded that the employment situation of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in China contains numerous indicators of forced labor, with a “labor mediation policy” in place that severely restricts the free choice of workplace.
In response to the allegations, the Chinese Embassy in Washington stated that the Xinjiang issue is not a human rights issue, but rather a question of combating violent terrorism and separatism. The claim of forced labor, the embassy claimed, is “nothing but vicious lies invented by anti-China forces”.