Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Apple supplier accused of forced labor
One of the oldest and most well-known iPhone suppliers has been accused of using forced Muslim labor in its factories, according to documents uncovered by a human-rights group, adding new scrutiny to Apple’s human-rights record in China.
The documents, discovered by the Tech Transparency Project and shared exclusively with The Washington Post, detail how thousands of Uighur workers from the predominantly Muslim region of Xinjiang were sent to work for Lens Technology. Lens also supplies Amazon and Tesla, according to its annual report.
Lens Technology is one of at least five companies connected to Apple’s supply chain that have now been associated with forced labor allegations from the Xinjiang region, accord
ing to human-rights groups. Lens Technology stands out from other Apple component suppliers because of its highprofile founder and long, well-documented history going back to the early days of the iPhone.
“Our research shows that Apple’s use of forced labor in its supply chain goes far beyond what the company has acknowledged,” said Katie Paul, director of the Tech Transparency Project.
Apple spokesman Josh Rosenstock said the company has confirmed that Lens Technology has not received any labor transfers of Uighur workers from Xinjiang. He said Apple earlier this year ensured that none of its other suppliers are using Uighur labor transferred from Xinjiang.
“Apple has zero tolerance for forced labor,” Rosenstock said. “Looking for the presence of forced labor is part of every supplier assessment we conduct, including surprise audits. These protections apply across the supply chain, regardless of a person’s job or location. Any violation of our policies has immediate consequences, including possible business termination. As always, our focus is on making sure everyone is treated with dignity and respect, and we will continue doing all we can to protect workers in our supply chain.”
Lens Technology didn’t respond to requests for comment.
‘ULTERIOR MOTIVES’
In response to faxed questions from The Post, the Foreign Ministry in Beijing called forced labor in China “nonexistent” and accused people with “ulterior motives” of fabricating it. It said a number of companies had hired auditors to conduct investigations, which “confirmed the nonexistence of ‘forced labor.’” It did not name the companies.
Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment. Amazon spokeswoman Samantha Kruse declined to comment. (Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
Apple products include thousands of components that are made by suppliers around the world. While some suppliers are small or work for Apple through middlemen, Apple has a much closer relationship with its major suppliers such as Lens. The company has a supplier code of conduct and says it assessed 1,142 suppliers in 49 countries in 2019, ensuring that good labor conditions are upheld. It declined to say whether Lens was one of the audited suppliers. Apple publishes an annual progress report documenting its results.
Still, Apple has faced criticism for its labor practices in the past, particularly in China. It has also recently spread to India, where Apple has been building up its manufacturing base. Thousands of workers gathered outside Apple supplier Wistron earlier this month in Southern India to protest working conditions. Apple didn’t respond to requests for comment about the working conditions at Wistron.
“Apple claims to take extraordinary measures to monitor its supply chain for such problems, but the evidence we found was openly available on the Internet,” said Paul of the Tech Transparency Project.
MUSLIMS TARGETED
Xinjiang, in far western China bordering Afghanistan, Pakistan and other Muslimmajority countries, is facing a brutal crackdown by China’s government, which has placed more than a million Muslims in concentration camps or forced them to work in factories making everything from cotton to soft drinks to electronics.
Uighur workers transferred from Xinjiang to other regions of China are often, if not always, forced or coerced, according to human-rights groups and academics who have conducted interviews with people who have escaped the system. The Chinese government does not permit human-rights groups to enter the country to interview laborers or observe conditions. The documents unearthed by Tech Transparency Project don’t detail the working conditions in Lens Technology factories.
“There’s really no way to give informed consent in Xinjiang any longer because the threat of extrajudicial detention is so extreme,” said Darren Byler, an anthropologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder who studies Uighur migrants. Byler said the Chinese government’s use of forced labor in the Xinjiang region has long been established, but has stepped up since 2017, when the most recent crackdown on Uighurs began.