LONDON (AP) — A Uyghur organization and a human rights group are taking the U.K. government to court to challenge Britain’s failure to block the import of cotton products associated with forced labor and other abuses in China’s far western Xinjiang region.
Tuesday’s hearing at the High Court in London is believed the first time a foreign court hears legal arguments from the Uyghurs over the issue of forced labor in Xinjiang. The region is a major global supplier of cotton, but rights groups have long alleged that the cotton is picked and processed by China’s Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities in a widespread, state-sanctioned system of forced labor.
The case, brought by the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress and the Global Legal Action Network, a nonprofit, is one of several similar legal challenges aimed at putting pressure on the U.K. and European Union governments to follow the lead of the United States, where a law took effect this year to ban all cotton products suspected of being made in Xinjiang.
Researchers say Xinjiang produces 85% of cotton grown in China, constituting one-fifth of the world’s cotton. Rights groups argue that the scale of China’s rights violations in Xinjiang – which the U.N. says may amount to “crimes against humanity” – means that numerous international fashion brands are at high risk of using cotton tainted with forced labor and other rights abuses.
Gearóid Ó Cuinn, the Global Legal Action Network’s director, said the group submitted almost 1,000 pages of evidence — including company records, NGO investigations and Chinese government documents — to the U.K. and U.S. governments in 2020 to back its case. British authorities have taken no action so far, he said.
“Right now, U.K. consumers are systematically exposed to consumer goods tainted by forced labor,” Ó Cuinn said. “It does demonstrate the lack of political will.”
Researchers and advocacy groups estimate 1 million or more people from Uyghur and other minority groups have been swept into detention camps in Xinjiang, where many say they were tortured, sexually assaulted, and forced to abandon their language and religion. The organizations say the camps, along with forced labor and draconian birth control policies, are a sweeping crackdown on Xinjiang’s minorities.