Repression of Uighurs in China forced work in your t-shirt?

Since January, Canada has banned any import of articles from forced labor in the Chinese province of Xinjiang, where Uighurs are targeted by a policy of repression.Three months later, Chinese cotton remains omnipresent on our displays.Retailers anxious to guarantee an ethical supply juggle this delicate question.

Headache for retailers

There is this cap with the acronym of a well -known sports team awaiting a potential customer in a Montreal department store.There are also pajamas, night dresses, t-shirts, hoods like "aristochats" and whole collections of clothes ready for the summer that comes.

A tour of Montreal stores makes it possible to note that "Made in China" clothes are omnipresent on the displays of the main players in this sector in Quebec.

In the eyes of the defenders of Uighurs, these Muslims persecuted by Beijing in Xinjiang, in western China, all these articles are suspicious.

The cotton that composes them is likely, they say, to have been picked up in Xinjiang, the province which provides 85 % of Chinese cotton, and where more than half a million Uighurs work under the constraint.

According to a report published in December 2020 by researcher Adrian Zenz for the Newlines Institute, at least 570,000 Uighurs were conscripted for cotton harvest.

There is proof of forced work linked to all the cotton produced in the Xinjiang.

Adrian Zenz, researcher for the Newlines Institute

Since January, Canada has banned imports of textile products from forced labor in Xinjiang.But in fact, no Chinese import has been intercepted so far (see next tab).

And consumers have no way of checking whether the clothes they covet have been made in compliance with minimum work standards.

Employees of the eight stores visited by the press generally ignore this delicate subject.With the exception of a saleswoman who said he was "shocked by the situation of the Uighurs", most of those we met had never heard of it.And even the channels that display their concern for ethical clothes obscure the issue of forced work in China.

In a store, we have seen cotton items labeled as biological, recycled or produced without threatening coral reefs.But there is no indication of the working conditions of cotton pickers.

Explosive subject

The subject of Chinese cotton is explosive.Companies that have spoken on forced work in the Xinjiang were entitled to the wrath of China. Après avoir annoncé qu’elle ne s’approvisionnerait plus en coton provenant du Xinjiang, la chaîne H & M a été prise dans la tourmente.Two Chinese stars, actor Huang Xuan and singer Victoria Song, who represented the Swedish firm in China, ended their contract, in the name of "national interest".

Baidu Maps, la version locale de Google Maps, est allée jusqu’à retirer la position des magasins H & M de ses cartes.

The company ended up bending under pressure.She has just published a press release where she is committed to "regaining Chinese consumer confidence".

Other companies, such as Inditex, which operates the Zara brand, also made amends towards China.

Between the tree and the bark

"Companies are taken between the tree and the bark," observes Ari Van Assche, expert in the China economy at HEC Montreal.

If they do not denounce the situation in Xinjiang, they have a bad image with Western consumers.If they do, "they have problems with the government and the Chinese public".

The Director General of the Quebec City Council for Retail Trade, Jean-Guy Côté, notes that the situation "concerns a lot" the members of the organization dealing with China who lack information to be able to ensure that nonecotton from forced work is not likely to end up in their supply chain.

The reflection precipitated by the pandemic of Covid-19 as to the need to diversify the sources of supply, and to "bring" certain production stages, could have an impact in this file, he says.

Silence of companies

No wonder the eight retailers contacted by the press did not rush to comment on this delicate subject.Only Simons agreed to speak to us. H & M a indiqué par courriel ne pas avoir de commentaires « à partager ».And Reitmans said, also by email, to follow this file closely.

We do everything in our power to ensure that no fiber or contested product is entering our supply chain.

Reitmans, in an email

At Uniqlo, Walmart, Inditex, Sports Experts and Lululemon, it is radio silence.The latter is the only one where no product was found in China.

The NHL, arrested about a cap sold at Walmart with its printer, said it had the assurance that the product was not made in Xinjiang and did not contain cotton from this region.

In an interview, Peter Simons, owner of the stores of the same name, said he was concerned about the situation in the Xinjiang.He assures that his company has no factory in this region.And he says that after having heard of the forced work phenomenon, in January 2020, he contacted all his suppliers who guaranteed him that their cotton sons did not come from there.

Peter Simons nevertheless admits that "cotton traceability" worries him.

"It takes a multidimensional policy, it is hard to navigate for companies, it takes more collaboration on the part of the [Canadian] government," he argues.

Complicated situation

The situation is all the more complicated as Chinese textile factories also use imported cotton, underlines Ari Van Assche.A "made in china" shirt may well contain cotton from elsewhere, for example from Uzbekistan.

The ultimate responsibility in this file returns to governments, which must require companies the implementation of reliable traceability systems, says Penelope Kyritisis, of the coalition to stop forced work in Xinjiang.

She deplores that firms that use Chinese cotton in their products tend to send the ball back to their suppliers when they are questioned about the possible recourse to forced work.

They choose not to know.

Penelope Kyritsis, of the coalition to stop forced work in Xinjiang

But it is not easy to go up the whole supply chain, nuance Ari van Assche.Store channels are dealing with "supplier suppliers from suppliers".Easy to lose the thread of production ...

Impossible traceability

Faced with Western criticism, China reacts by denial.

"Workers of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang freely choose their jobs and sign a contract in accordance with the law," says the China Foreign Ministry, quoted in a recent BBC report.

"The smiling face of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang are the most powerful answer to lies and rumors propagated by the United States," added the ministry.

The Consul General of China in Montreal, Chen Xueming, affirms in a message written to the press that the accusations on the treatment of Uighurs are "disinformation" intended to "satisfy the geopolitical interests of governments and [to engage inPolitical propaganda of false information against China ”.

In front of the Montreal International Relations Council (Corim), last week, China's ambassador to Canada, Cong Peiwu, accused the West, "including Canada", to interfere in Chinese domestic affairs "so-called under the pretext of human rights "and hammered that there was" nothing of a genocide ".

The Xi Jinping regime is engaged in a "fight against terrorism and secession", a fight that goes through education.

You call this [rehabilitation] camps, but these are schools, in fact.

Cong Peiwu, Chinese ambassador to Canada

Beijing also blocks access to the Xinjiang, so as to make cotton traceability investigations almost impossible.

"Identifying forced work in the Xinjiang represents a challenge, since several of the traditional tools used by companies, such as audits on working conditions, are not effective in this context," writes the center for strategic and international studies (CSIS) in an analysis published in 2019.

By relying on testimonies of ex-workers and Uighurs detainees, the CSIS identifies around thirty cotton producers using forced work.

All factories that appear as "vocational training centers" or "poverty reduction" are, in fact, based on forced labor.

Access to the Xinjiang is so difficult that Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), an organization dedicated to the promotion of cotton ethical culture, has ceased any cotton certification from this region and withdrew from Xinjiang.

Vilified by the Chinese authorities, BCI has just removed his criticisms from forced work in the Xinjiang from his website.Sign of the explosive nature of the file, the organization refused to answer our questions about it.

This absence of reliable verification mechanisms encourages the CSIS to affirm that companies should refuse to use any product of the Xinjiang, point.

Mehmet Tohti, Director General of the Defense Project of the Rights of Uighurs (URAP), established in Ottawa, goes further.He estimates that the sale of cotton products from not only from Xinjiang, which produces 85 % of Chinese cotton, but also from all of China, is "morally unacceptable".

"Canadians buy these products because they are not expensive, but they are not expensive because they are produced with forced work, and profits finance the brutal policy of China," he said.

Who are the Uighurs?

Some 11 million Uighurs live in Xinjiang province in western China.This Muslim minority is expressed in a language close to Turkish.Uighurs prefer to designate their region by the name "Eastern Turkestan" - Xinjiang meaning "distant lands" in Mandarin.

The Chinese government has been trying for many years to reduce the weight of the Oighoure minority in the Xinjiang, in particular through population travel policies.But since 2016, repression against Uighurs has been accentuated.A massive internment policy, conducted under the pretext of "vocational training", threw 1 million people in prison.Forced sterilization campaigns, then an recourse to forced work, are among the tools deployed by Beijing against this minority.

In the eyes of several human rights organizations, this policy is akin to a genocide.The United States has denounced the genocide of the Uighurs.In Canada, the House of Commons voted a motion in this sense.

Two countries, two approaches

Canada and the United States, which denounce the treatment reserved for Uighurs by the Chinese government, have announced their intention to block at their borders any product arising from forced work in Xinjiang.

But if this policy has had concrete consequences on imports to the United States, Canada, its impact is still waiting.

Which disappoints Mehmet Tohti, Director General of the Defense of the Rights of Uighurs (URAP), established in Ottawa.He criticizes the Trudeau government for having "launched the ball to companies by asking them to take responsibility", while the United States targets all cotton imports from Xinjiang and tomato products cultivated massively in the region.

In the eyes of the United States, all imports are presumed to be guilty, it is necessary to demonstrate, evidence in hand, that they are not the fruit of forced work, says the Uighur activist, according to whom, in this case, "we must overturnThe burden of proof ".

The American method

The customs and border protection service of the United States (CBP) announced in January the implementation of special measures targeting cotton, tomatoes and their derivative products, whether generated in the Xinjiang region evenor integrated into products elsewhere in China.

By announcing the decision, the former assistant director of the internal security department Ken Cuccinelli said that the authorities would not tolerate "no form of forced work in the American supply chains".

He said that importers arousing suspicion should be able to demonstrate their product, from the collection of raw materials until the end of the production process was free from any forced work.

The required demonstration can be very detailed and even include heels of checks of employees assigned to the fields to show that they have indeed been remunerated!

Concretely, the CBP now has the power to grasp goods imported on the faith of a simple "reasonable doubt" on their origin.

The US administration has a list of companies that have already been associated with forced labor which has been drawn up by the Labor Department and which is made public.

Penelope Kyritsis, of the coalition to stop forced work in Xinjiang, note que le système américain constitue un pas dans la bonne direction même s’il ne permet pas systématiquement de déterminer si du coton du Xinjiang a été utilisé.

We also do not know the quantity of products seized since its introduction, which complicates the evaluation of its effectiveness, says the activist.

« Il faut plus de transparence là aussi », note M^me Kyritsis.

The Canadian Method

The policy announced on January 12 by ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs François-Philippe Champagne prohibits importing goods from all or part of forced work.

It details in seven measures, including "advice on advice to Canadian companies", an opinion on "business conduct with entities related to Xinjiang" and "increased awareness of responsible driving of companies exercising activities in the Xinjiang".

But for the moment, no product imported from China has yet been intercepted by the Canadian authorities.

It is that the tools to achieve this are not yet ready, according to the Ministry of Labor, which coordinates Canadian policy in forced labor in China.

The Ministry of Employment and Social Development is currently collaborating with the Canadian Border Services Agency to specify the details of the prohibition policy, said Lars Wessman, director of communications at the Federal Ministry of Labor.

"We make a case by case"

Canadian policy remains insufficient, says the deputy for Quebec Bloc Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, according to whom Ottawa would have an interest in being inspired by what is done in the United States.

The approach of the United States is effective because there is enough reasonable reasons to presume "a guilty company or region, unless proven otherwise," he said.

"In Canada, this is the opposite, we make a case -by -case basis," presuming the goodwill of the companies, says the deputy who has just been targeted by Beijing reprisals.Vice-president of the communities of municipalities on international human rights, Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe advocates the displacement of the Beijing Olympic Games.Consequence: His name has just been registered on the blacklist of people prohibited from stay in China.

Conservative deputy Michael Chong, who has also just been penalized by China, also believes that Canada is not far enough in its fight against forced work of Uighurs.He advocates an embargo on any cotton or tomato product from Xinjiang.

"You also have to give tools to the Canada Border Services Agency," said Michael Chong.

To which Ottawa retorts that these tools are precisely in preparation.