GLOBAL BRANDS EMPLOY UYGHUR MUSLIMS AS ‘FORCED LABOUR’

ment has described as “backward” and “disturbed by religious extremism”.

The report also mentions that it had investigated into the Haoyuanpeng Clothing Manufacturing Co. Ltd, which has a strategic partnership with global companies like the Italian-south Korean fashion label Fila, German sportswear companies Adidas and Puma and Nike for manufacturing clothes and found that it was part of the “Xinjiang Aid” and had been receiving “forced labour”.

Global phone leader Apple’s selfie camera manufacturer O-film Technology Co. Ltd in Guangzhou, China, is also a part of the “Xinjiang Aid” and receives multiple workforces in terms of Uyghur Muslims, the report said. The company also claims on its website to manufacture camera modules and touchscreen components for a number of other well-known companies including Huawei, Lenovo and Samsung. A local government document accessed by the ASPI researchers from September 2019 said that 560 Xinjiang labourers were transferred to work in factories in central Henan province, including Foxconn Technology’s Zhengzhou facility. Foxconn, a Taiwanese company, is the biggest contract electronics manufacturer in the world, making devices for Apple, Dell and Sony, among others. The Zhengzhou facility reportedly makes half of the world’s iphones and is the reason why Zhengzhou city is dubbed as “iphone city”. A September 2019 report by New York-based China Labour Watch said contract workers at Foxconn’s Zhengzhou factory, who include Uyghur workers, had put in at least 100 overtime hours a month. Over the past decade, Foxconn has been marred by allegations of worker exploitation and even suicides, including recently at its Zhengzhou facility. The company has also actively participated in the “Xinjiang Aid” scheme.

The ASPI report claims that this is a “state-sponsored” programme where the Uyghurs who are brought in as labour force have no option but to continue with their given assignment as escape route is not easy.

“The workers in these factories are brought and kept in dormitories after they finish their ‘re-education’ in the camps. In their work place, they lead a harsh and segregated life. They are forbidden to practice religion and are required to compulsorily take Mandarin lessons. Most strikingly, local governments and private brokers are paid a price per head by the Xinjiang provincial government to organise the labour assignments,” the report said.

The report also brings to light how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cadres surveil the workers’ families who are left back in the Xinjiang province as a caution to the workers that if they try to flee or are found to be indulging in misconduct in the factory, their families could face consequences.

The report also quoted a religious and human rights NGO, Bitter Winter, where a Uyghur worker said, “We were all former ‘re-education camp’ detainees and were threatened with further detention if they disobeyed the government’s work assignments. The police regularly search our dormitories and check our phones for any religious content. If a Quran is found, the owner will be sent back to the ‘re-education camp’ for 3-5 years.”

The United Nations estimates that more than a million Muslim Uyghurs have been detained in the camps of Xinjiang over the years for indoctrination and to induct them into the CCP style of living and all this in the name of providing vocational training and removing terrorism.