Coalition to End Forced Labour in the Uyghur Region

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Critical Minerals Industry

A large number of industries and consumer goods with critical minerals supply chains are tainted by Uyghur forced labour.

Updated November 2025

The mining, production, and processing of a number of minerals, which are used to manufacture and produce parts, inputs, and materials for goods across industries, remain concentrated in the Uyghur Region. Further, in the last ten years, the Uyghur Region has become a hub for transition minerals and inputs that are key to the transition to renewable energy, and now dominates that sector. The environmental implications are severe. Critical minerals processing undertaken in the Uyghur Region is heavily reliant on coal for energy, leading to high carbon emissions. This not only violates human rights in the Uyghur Region but also undermines efforts to achieve net-zero emissions.

Metallurgical-grade silicon and polysilicon in the solar sector

  • Every level of the solar panel supply chain is exposed to Uyghur forced labour. Mining, processing, and production within the solar supply chain, including quartzite mining, metallurgical-grade silicon smelting, and solar-grade polysilicon production, is concentrated in the Uyghur Region. See the Solar Industry Call to Action.
  • As of 2025, 26.3% of the world’s polysilicon is produced in the Uyghur Region.
  • The Uyghur Region accounts for 53% of China’s metallurgical-grade silicon production.
  • As of 2021, there were four polysilicon manufacturers in the Uyghur Region that accounted for 48% of the world’s production. All four openly admit participating in labour transfer programmes.
  • Corporate disclosures indicate that the top four polysilicon-based solar module manufacturers maintained contracts with polysilicon producers in the Uyghur Region through at least the end of 2025.
  • Research has assessed that the vast majority of all polysilicon-based panels are at risk of exposure to Uyghur forced labour.

Lithium in multiple sectors, including electronics, renewable energy applications, and electric vehicles

  • The Uyghur Region is being developed into a centre for lithium extraction, and lithium processing and production in the region are increasing as well.
  • Research finds that Uyghur Region-based manufacturers have produced hundreds of millions of lithium-based batteries for consumer and industrial use, including for smartphones, tablets, power tools, energy storage, automobiles, wind turbines, and servomotors.
  • Suppliers in the lithium supply chain are deeply implicated in state-sponsored labour transfer programmes.

Lithium, aluminium, copper, and manganese in the automotive and EV sector

  • EV components, including lithium-ion batteries, are increasingly at high risk of being produced with Uyghur forced labour. See the Automotive Industry Call to Action.
  • Suppliers in the manganese supply chain are deeply implicated in state-sponsored labour transfer programmes.
  • As of 2022, 12% of the world’s aluminium, a key component in car manufacturing, is produced in the Uyghur Region.
  • A supplier of copper in the supply chains for electric vehicle batteries, located in the Uyghur Region, has been reported to engage in labour transfer schemes in the Uyghur Region.

Titanium, lithium, beryllium, and magnesium in multiple sectors

  • Research has found links between major Chinese producers of titanium, lithium, beryllium, and magnesium to the Uyghur Region.
  • Research traces the supply chains of these producers to well-known international brands and retailers in the aerospace and renewable energy industries, as well as consumer goods ranging from electronics to paint to titanium thermoses.
  • Extractive companies operating in the Uyghur Region rely heavily on state-sponsored, coercive labour transfer schemes.
  • Titanium is a key input for the automotive, aerospace, and medical applications sectors, as well as for an array of consumer goods. A research report states that the Uyghur Region accounts for approximately 17% of China’s titanium sponge production and more than 11% of global production, and links titanium processed in the Region to major paint companies and brands selling insulated mugs.
  • Beryllium is used in the aerospace, defence, telecommunications, and electronics industries. A research report states that 83.5% of China’s beryllium reserves are in the Region and that China accounts for 22% of global beryllium mine production.
  • Magnesium is an input in aluminium alloys, and magnesium from the Region likely affects the automotive, aerospace, and electronics industries. The Uyghur Region accounted for 5.6% of China’s smelted magnesium production in 2024, a figure that is expected to double this year.

Regulatory developments have made the demands of the Coalition to End Forced Labour in the Uyghur Region a legal requirement. In 2022, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) came into force, which establishes a rebuttable presumption that the importation of any goods, wares, articles, and merchandise mined, produced, or manufactured wholly, or in part, in the Uyghur Region, or produced by certain entities implicated in forced labour, is prohibited by Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930 and not entitled to entry to the United States. The UFLPA, in effect, codifies into law the central elements of the Coalition’s Call to Action.

The European Union’s Forced Labour Regulation will prevent the trade of goods made with forced labour and covers both the import of goods and the trade of goods within and from the EU bloc. In the UK, the Court of Appeal ruled that companies that knowingly or with suspicion import goods made under criminal circumstances—such as through Uyghur forced labour—can now be prosecuted under the Proceeds of Crime Act for trading criminal property.

Only by taking the actions enumerated in the Call to Action can companies act responsibly and prevent their supply chains from being linked to the forced labour of Uyghurs and other Turkic and Muslim-majority peoples.

Read the Call to Action

The Coalition is demanding that companies, including those without a US market:

  • Commit to apply a single global standard, aligned with the legal requirements set forth in the UFLPA, to exclude Uyghur forced labour across their supply chains, and not to bifurcate their supply chains where one supply chain is tainted by Uyghur forced labour and one is compliant with the UFLPA and free of Uyghur forced labour.
  • Commit to not re-exporting goods detained under the auspices of the UFLPA to other markets and attempt to sell those goods in other markets.

These demands are made in consideration of existing and forthcoming laws in other jurisdictions, particularly the EU and EU Member States, and to raise business standards globally.

Furthermore, governments should require that all public procurement be free of content manufactured or processed in whole or in part in the Uyghur Region.

For companies wishing to speak with the Coalition, please email [email protected].

Key Resources

 

Photo by ダモ リ on Unsplash