The law is a direct response to the widespread, well-documented reports of crimes against humanity in the Uyghur regions — and the fact that the reactions from most global brands to the issue have been, to put it lightly, disappointing.
A big change is coming for companies and brands that source anything from
China. Within a few weeks, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention
Act (UFLPA) will come into
effect. Passed late last year with bi-partisan
support,
the bill was created after several reports and investigations found that a
variety of goods being produced by Uyghur workers in conditions of forced labor
were being imported into the United States.
“Companies, now, should be understanding whether or not they are already in
violation of the law,” Allison Gill, forced labor program director at
Washington, DC-based nonprofit Global Labor Justice-International Labor Rights
Forum told Sustainable Brands™. “I’d be really interested to know
how they are doing that.”
The bill will make due diligence on supply chains linked to Xinjiang, the
Chinese name for the Uyghur homeland in the west of the country, no longer
optional.
“It does put a really high bar on companies,” Joanna Ewart-James, Executive
Director of Freedom United, told SB. “Companies are responsible for ensuring
that the goods that are coming into the US are not produced by forced labor.
It’s the type of legislation that we haven’t seen before; but it makes complete
sense.”
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Hear more from Radley Yeldar’s Eileen Chen about why we should rethink our assumptions about sustainable consumers and why redefining our target demographics will serve the broader needs of our transition as a society — June 8 at Brand-Led Culture Change.
It is necessary, as a new report from
the C4ADS finds that several goods from Xinjiang are readily entering global
supply chains. While cotton and
garments
have gotten the most attention, they also identified poly-silicon (used in solar
manufacturing), pepper, tomatoes, beryllium, wind turbines and calcium carbide.
“Organizations involved in the purchase of these agricultural and industrial
products are at risk of supporting
oppression,”
said the report’s author, Irina Bukharin, in a
brief.
The law is a direct response to the widespread, well-documented reports of
crimes against humanity in the Uyghur regions; the largest system of
concentration
camps
since World War II, housing perhaps as many as three million Uyghurs and other
mostly Turkic Muslim minorities. Alongside this is ongoing cultural
genocide
as Mosques, cemeteries, shrines, and historic Uyghur
neighborhoods
have all been destroyed. In fact, there is increasingly irrefutable
evidence that
mass-scale, state-sanctioned forced
labor
of Uyghurs is being used in farms and factories throughout the region.
The law is also a response to the fact that the reactions from most global
brands have been, to put it lightly,
disappointing.
Few, if any, have been proactive at limiting their exposure to supply chains
connected to the Uyghur regions; some brands even
lobbied
against this bill.
The UFLPA would work by presuming that all goods manufactured in Xinjiang are
made with forced labor, unless otherwise certified by US Customs and Border
Protection. It also mandates companies to disclose their dealing in Xinjiang
and will create lists of Chinese companies that have used forced labor and
prohibit companies from sourcing from them.
The UFLPA is just one law in one country, but it may be a sign of things to
come. Germany, Europe’s largest market, passed a mandatory human rights due
diligence law last year that states
companies
“must identify risks of human rights violations and environmental
destruction at direct suppliers and, if they gain substantiated knowledge of a
potential abuse, also at indirect suppliers.”
Moreover, draft European Union (EU) Mandatory Due Diligence
regulations
could also put a higher impetus on large European brands to engage with workers
and address labor, social and environmental risks in their supply chains — or
face potential legal and civil liability.
“It’s a historic opportunity to really scale good practices up, and make it
mandatory for all large companies in the EU market,” Johannes Blankenbach,
Senior Western Europe Researcher at the Business and Human Rights Resource
Centre, told SB.
The reason for this goes beyond the situation in Xinjiang. There is a growing
recognition that, despite a few noteworthy exceptions, the brand-led voluntary
compliance system has not worked in addressing labor rights violations in
global supply
chains.
Part of the reason is that it creates an uneven playing field — ethical brands
pay more to source from ethical suppliers, while the ones who don’t care about
human rights can give lower prices to cost-conscious consumers.
“There are a few leaders, and many laggards in this area,” Blankenbach says.
“After years of voluntary implementation, progress has been too slow. And
many companies agree with that.”
For human rights advocates who, since 2018, have been raising alarm bells about
what has been happening to Uyghurs in China, the UFLPA is welcomed; but it’s
just the first step.
“It’s encouraging that there has been some movement as a result of sustained
pressure on these companies, but far more will be required before we eliminate
Uyghur forced labor and the atrocities directly connected to it,” Peter
Irwin, with the non-profit Uyghur Human Rights Project,
told Sustainable Brands.
The era of voluntary self-regulation, when it comes to labor violations in your
supply chain, may be over. If brands want to continue to source from the
developing world, and especially China, they’re going to have to do more to
ensure that they aren’t — intentionally or unintentionally — enabling forced
labor, or, in the case of the Uyghurs,
genocide.
Published Jun 2, 2022 2pm EDT / 11am PDT / 7pm BST / 8pm CEST
Nithin Coca
Media, Campaign and Research Consultant
Nithin is a freelance writer who focuses on global economic, and environmental issues with an aim at building channels of communication and collaboration around common challenges.
