Joint statement: Industry associations urge US govt. to engage multi-stakeholder working group to address forced labour of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang & across China
"STATEMENT ON REPORTS OF FORCED LABOR IN XINJIANG", 10 March 2020
... We are deeply concerned by reports of forced labor and the treatment of Uyghurs and other ethnic minority workers in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) and elsewhere in China. The reported situation... is unprecedented during the modern era of global supply chains...
[T]he conditions in Xinjiang and the treatment of ethnic minority workers from the region present profound challenges to the integrity of the global supply chain, including issues of transparency, access, and auditing...
Brands and retailers are drawing on expert guidance and assembling industry stakeholders to address the situation... Our members have expressed strong concerns to their suppliers...
[O]ur industry cannot solve this alone. A successful solution for all, including the workers, will require state-to-state engagement and collaborative partnerships... Therefore, we urge the U.S. government to immediately engage a multi-stakeholder working group to develop and deploy a collective approach that accurately assesses the problem, and find constructive solutions...