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Over the past few months, a colossal Swedish clothing company named H&M has been getting a lot of negative press because of being accused of using “forced labor” in Xinjiang province where a mass extinction or genocide of Chinese Uyghur Muslims is planned out.
Earlier in the year, in the month of March, a report published by the ASPI (Australian Strategic Policy Institute) revealed H&M being one of the recipients of a forced labor exchange program through their relationship with the colored yarn maker Huafu‘s plant in Anhui.
At first, the fashion retailer denied to make any comments and stayed quiet for several months, but as they kept receiving a lot of backlash from both their consumers and media, then finally a spokesperson from H&M decided to give a statement and said, “To our knowledge, there have been no violations. But needless to say, we take the information published by the Financial Times very seriously.”
According to H&M before they do business with any nation in their agreement they list a clause that clearly states, “forced labour, bonded, prison or illegal labour is not accepted.” So based on this, it was also shocking for the brand itself to be accused of using “forced labor”. Failure to comply with the clause “would lead to a permanent termination of our business contract,” the spokesperson added.
This is exactly what happened on Tuesday, September 15th, 2020, H&M declared that it will end its business operations within Xinjiang, China as the brand does not want anymore backlash. Other than Coronavirus, this was a major factor for H&M sales to drop dramatically as people felt since the brand wasn’t doing justice, they would do it themselves as consumers by choosing not to purchase their products.
Other than H&M, the APSI has revealed many other shocking big business names such as Apple, BMW, Gap, Huawei, Nike, Samsung, Sony and Volkswagen are “directly or indirectly benefiting from the use of Uyghur workers outside Xinjiang through potentially abusive labour transfer programs as recently as 2019”
The full list of the 82 companies they pointed out are as follows:
- Abercrombie & Fitch
- Acer
- Adidas
- Alstom
- Amazon
- Apple
- ASUS
- BAIC Motor
- BMW
- Bombardier
- Bosch
- BYD
- Calvin Klein
- Candy
- Carter’s
- Cerruti 1881
- Changan Automobile
- Cisco
- CRRC
- Dell
- Electrolux
- Fila
- Founder Group
- GAC Group (automobiles)
- Gap
- Geely Auto
- General Motors
- Goertek
- Haier
- H&M
- Hart Schaffner Marx
- Hisense
- Hitachi
- HP
- HTC
- Huawei
- iFlyTek
- Jack & Jones
- Jaguar
- Japan Display Inc.
- L.L.Bean
- Lacoste
- Land Rover
- Lenovo,
- LG
- Li-Ning
- Mayor
- Meizu
- Mercedes-Benz
- MG
- Microsoft
- Mitsubishi
- Mitsumi
- Nike,
- Nintendo
- Nokia
- Oculus
- Oppo
- Panasonic
- Polo Ralph Lauren
- Puma
- Roewe
- SAIC Motor
- Samsung
- SGMW
- Sharp
- Siemens
- Skechers
- Sony
- TDK
- Tommy Hilfiger
- Toshiba
- Tsinghua Tongfang
- Uniqlo
- Victoria’s Secret
- Vivo
- Volkswagen
- Xiaomi
- Zara
- Zegna
- ZTE
H&M has come forward and taken its step against forced labor of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang China, lets see how other companies take action on these accusations from the ASPI. Uyghurs are thankful for this first victory and are pleading consumers to put more pressure on other brands so that they take action just like H&M too!
