Global Apparel: Loving That Forced Labor
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In the decade since I spent a year exploring the horrors of outsourcing for Out of Sight, nothing has happened to hold corporations accountable for using the most exploited possible labor other than our politics getting so much worse and having little hope of dealing with it. Still, you do what you can to publicize this stuff and here’s a story about the British company Shein using prison labor from Chinese Uyghur concentration camps and being just okey dokey about it.
The online fashion seller Shein has refused to reassure British MPs that its products do not include cotton produced in the Xinjiang region of China, which has been linked to forced Uyghur labour, prompting one MP to accuse its representative of “wilful ignorance”.
In testy exchanges before MPs on the business and trade committee, Yinan Zhu, the general counsel for Shein’s European arm, repeatedly said she was not qualified to answer questions about the fast-fashion retailer’s supply chain amid concerns from campaigners over forced labour.
Zhu said she could not answer questions about whether Shein’s manufacturers – none of which the company owns directly – used the controversial yarn or whether any of them were based in the Xinjiang region. She said the company may be able to provide a written answer in future.
Zhu was sent a dossier outlining links between cotton production in the region and forced labour of the Muslim minority Uyghur people.
However, she said the material, put together by the campaign group Stop Uyghur Genocide, was “not specifically relating to Shein”, which is headquartered in Singapore but founded in China where most of its products are made.
She said Shein, which is believed to be hoping to list on the London Stock Exchange this year – valued at as much as £50bn – was confident that the company met all UK laws including modern slavery rules.
Shein had initially planned to list in New York but reportedly decided on London after opposition from US politicians. Last summer, Labour indicated its support for Shein’s potential London listing.
Of course Labour would support this. Why not? There’s nothing labour about the Labour Party anymore anyway.