Civil society coalition calls on fashion and home-furnishing industries to end links to Uyghur forced labor
"An Open Letter to the Fashion and Home-Furnishing Industries," 2 March 2021
[T]he Coalition to End Forced Labour in the Uyghur Region, call[s] on all companies to urgently end all links to Uyghur forced labour. ...
The Uyghur Region is also a global hub for cotton growing and manufacturing, producing cotton and cotton products produced with forced labour from field to factory. Numerous other products are implicated, from solar panels to electronics. However, since up to 1 in 5 of all cotton products around the world may be tainted with Uyghur forced labour, the likelihood of links to fashion and home-furnishing industries is particularly high. ... The past few months have seen growing momentum in the fight for Uyghur human rights [including in Australia, Canada, the EU, the United States, and the UK] ...
In July 2020, we launched a Call to Action outlining the urgent steps brands and retailers must take to end their complicity with the forced labour ... While some brands, including ASOS, Marks & Spencer and Eileen Fisher, have demonstrated leadership and integrity by publicly committing to the requirements of the Call to Action, many fashion companies are dragging their feet. ...
... Traditional due diligence and audit systems that companies rely on to be sure their supply chains are free from forced labour have failed. The only way companies can be sure they aren’t selling clothes and textiles made with forced labour ... is to take the steps laid out in the Call to Action. ...