Letter to the G7 leaders on combating Uyghur forced labour

June 23, 2022

Dear leaders of the G7,

We, members and supporters of the Coalition to End Forced Labour in the Uyghur Region, are writing to you in advance of the G7 annual Leaders’ Summit on 26-28 June to urge the adoption of concrete measures to combat forced labour and other grave human rights violations against Uyghurs and other Turkic and Muslim majority peoples of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (Uyghur Region), perpetrated by the government of China.

Our coalition comprises more than 400 civil society organisations and trade unions from over 40 countries united to end state-sponsored forced labour and other egregious abuses against people from the Uyghur Region. We call on leading companies across supply chains to ensure that they do not support or benefit from systematic, state-sponsored forced labour of Uyghurs both in the Uyghur Region and across China through coercive labour transfers, and on governments to take action.

We welcome your commitment, as articulated in the G7 Foreign Ministers’ communiqué of 14 May, to “tackle instances of forced labour,” including through domestic means. We urge you to make meaningful this commitment through the adoption and robust enforcement of import control mechanisms to stop the flood of goods tainted with Uyghur forced labour from entering your markets, an approach endorsed in the communiqué of the 24 May G7 Employment Ministerial Meeting.

This year, the International Labour Organization registered its deep concern with regard to evidence of the systematic repression of Uyghurs, and subsequently deplored this fact at its annual conference. Researchers, journalists, and survivors have credibly documented the use of Uyghur forced labour in numerous global supply chains, including garment and textile, chemical, pharmaceutical, automotive, and agricultural. These goods and inputs are sold to consumers around the world. Nearly twenty percent of the world’s cotton is produced in the Uyghur Region, as well as forty-five percent of the world’s solar-grade polysilicon, which is necessary for solar panel production, and twenty-five percent of the world’s tomato paste, to name just a few examples.

Pervasive surveillance and repression make credible third-party audits impossible in the Uyghur Region. Companies must be required to map and disclose their supply chains down to the raw material level and cut ties with any supplier using Uyghur forced labour. Governments must stop these goods from entering their markets. Global alignment is crucial for import control measures targeting forced labour goods to be effective.

The US Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act (UFLPA) takes effect on 21 June. The law establishes the rebuttable presumption that any good made in whole or in part in the Uyghur Region or using Uyghur transported labour is made with forced labour and prohibited from entering US commerce. Forced labour import measures are also being considered in Canada and Australia. The EU has issued a Call for Evidence in advance of publishing its proposal for an EU legislative instrument to effectively ban products made by forced labour from entering the EU market. The UK has introduced a proposal to ban forced labour products in public healthcare supply chains. As noted by G7 Employment Ministers in the communiqué, “this momentum offers an opportunity: to ensure coherence in regulatory measures taken at the national level, provide legal clarity to business, reduce compliance costs for companies and, most importantly, prevent business involvement with harms to people and planet in the first instance, and enable access to effective remedy wherever they occur.”

As stewards of some of the world’s largest economies, we call on you to take clear action, in line with your commitments, to introduce legislation to stop goods made with Uyghur forced labour from entering your markets, to share data necessary for robust enforcement of these measures, and to hold accountable corporations which fail to take meaningful action to remove Uyghur forced labour from their supply chains.

Sincerely,

A Single Thread CIC // Sustainable Fashion Week

AFL-CIO

Anti-Slavery International

Aquinas Associates

Arise Foundation

ASTRA-Anti trafficking Action

Australian Uyghur Association

Australian Uyghur Tangritagh Women’s Association

Be Slavery Free

Befria HongKong

Belgium Uyghur Association

Birmingham Progressive Synagogue

Board of Deputies of British Jews

Campaign For Uyghurs

CCC Germany (Kampagne für Saubere Kleidung)

Center for Uyghur Studies

China Aid Association

Collectif Ethique sur l’étiquette

CoMensha, the Dutch Coordination Center against human trafficking

Comitato Lady Lawyer Village

Comite de Apoyo al Tíbet (CAT) Spain

Conference of Liberal Rabbis and Cantors

Coordination des Associations et des Particuliers pour la Liberté de Conscience

Corporate Accountability Lab

Cortez Church of the Nazarene

Cotton Campaign

Crane Center for Mass Atrocity Prevention

Dana Investment Advisors

Dark Bali

Dominican Sisters ~ Grand Rapids

Dutch Uyghur human rights foundation

Emgage Action

Environmental Justice Foundation

European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR)

European Sex Workers’ Rights Alliance (ESWA)

Fair

FAIRWORK Belgium

Fashion Revolution

Fashion Roundtable

FEMNET

FIDU – Italian Federation for Human Rights

Finchley Progressive Synagogue

Focus on Labour Exploitation

Free Uyghur Now

Freedom Collaborative

Freedom United

Global Labor Justice-International Labor Rights Forum

Global Legal Action Network

Global Student Forum

Grupo de Apoio ao Tibete-Portugal

Homeworkers Worldwide

Hong Kong Committee in Norway

Hong Kong Forum, Los Angeles

HopeNow

Human Resource Development Foundation

Human Rights Foundation

Human Rights Watch

Humanitarian China

Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility

IlhamTohti Initiative e.V.

Indonesia Save Uyghur

Investor Alliance for Human Rights

İsa Yusuf Alptekin Foundation

Jewish Movement For Uyghur Freedom

Jewish World Watch

La Strada International

Labour Behind the Label

Lady Lawyer Fashion Archive

Lady Lawyer Foundation

London Mining Network

Louise Xin Couture

Malaysia4Uyghur

Malaysian Consultative Council of Islamic Organizations

Nisa Nashim West Midlands

No Business With Genocide

Northwest Coalition for Responsible Investment

Norwegian Uyghur Committee

Open Gate – La Strada N. Macedonia

Prickly Thistle Scotland Ltd

Remake

René Cassin, the Jewish voice for human rights

Responsible Sourcing Network

Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth

Sisters of St. Dominic of Blauvelt, New York

Society for Threatened Peoples

Stop Uyghur Genocide Australia

Stop Uyghur Genocide UK

Sydney Network for Democracy in China

The Human Trafficking Legal Center

The International Women’s Alliance for Family Institution and Quality Education (WAFIQ)

The Peace Project

The Right Project

The Sustainable Angle & Future Fabrics Expo

Tibet Initiative Deutschland e.V.

Uyghur American Association

Uyghur Association of Victoria, Australia

Uyghur Center for Democracy and Human Rights

Uyghur Freedom Forum

Uyghur Human Rights Project

Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project

Uzbek Forum for Human Rights

“Vatra” Psycho – Social Centre , Albania

Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation

Worker Rights Consortium

World Uyghur Congress

Letter to the G7 leaders on combating Uyghur forced labour

 

Photo credit: “G7 Summit flags” by UK Prime Minister is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.