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Banks buy into jail-labour firm; Six financial giants among top shareholders of China's largest wig manufacturer which uses prisoners to make its products
Six of the world's largest financial institutions have bought shares in a Chinese wig manufacturer that could be barred from the United States, its biggest market, because it uses forced labour to make some of its products. Deutsche Bank, HSBC, ING, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and UBS have all bought Shanghai-listed A shares in Henan Rebecca Hair Products, China's largest wig maker, through the qualified foreign institutional investor (QFII) scheme...Under international law, work done by inmates in China's "re-education through labour" system is classed as forced labour because inmates cannot choose not to work and are usually not paid, according to Human Rights in China and the China Labour Bulletin.