US reviews report of imports from forced labour in China camp
BEIJING — The U.S. government said Tuesday that it is reviewing reports of forced labour at a Chinese internment camp where ethnic minorities are sewing clothes that have been shipped to the U.S. market.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement that reporting by The Associated Press and other media “for the first time appears to link the internment camps identified in Western China to the importation of goods produced by forced labour by a U.S. company.”
The AP tracked shipments from a factory in a camp in China’s far western Xinjiang region to Badger Sportswear in North Carolina. The company ships clothing to universities, colleges and schools around the United States.
Experts and a human rights organization say that possibly as many as 1 million Uighurs, Kazakhs and others from predominantly Muslim groups are arbitrarily detained in such camps, whose functions range from political indoctrination to forced labour.