UK MPs Hear about Risk of Uyghur Slave Labour Goods Turning UK into ‘Dumping Ground’
Experts testified before the Foreign Affairs Committee that companies operate ‘clean’ production lines for the United States and ‘dirty’ lines for other countries, including the UK.
The UK import rules are looser and the country is becoming a “dumping ground” for goods that may be tainted with Uyghur slave labour, according to reports shared with the MPs.
Chloe Cranston, head of the thematic advocacy programme at charity Anti-Slavery International, highlighted that the UK’s Modern Slavery Act is insufficient to address Uyghur forced labour and other forms of forced labour around the world because it is primarily a reporting obligation for companies.
On the other hand, the U.S. Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) considers goods from China’s Xinjiang Province to involve forced labour by default unless a company can prove otherwise. The European Union, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand have stronger anti-modern slavery legislation compared to the UK.
The experts also pointed out that the UK is at a higher risk of being exposed to products made with forced labour and human rights abuses, especially with increasing difficulty in tracing products’ manufacturing footprints in China.
Yalkun Uluyol, a researcher at Sheffield Hallam University’s Forced Labour Lab, discussed the bifurcation of supply chains, explaining how some companies run compliant production lines for the U.S. market and non-compliant lines for other markets, including the UK.
Experts also highlighted the need for more legislation, guidance, and transparency to help British businesses connect with countries such as Bangladesh, as Chinese manufacturers have been trying to evade UFLPA by exporting to South Asian countries or building subsidiaries there.
Furthermore, they emphasized the increasing difficulty of auditing manufacturing processes in China, particularly in the Uyghur region, due to the Chinese regime’s clampdown and extreme surveillance measures.
Mr. Uluyol shared that his immediate and extended family members have been affected by the situation in the Uyghur region, with some being placed in reeducation camps or sentenced to long prison terms for no valid reasons.
