Gap, Nike, Abercrombie & Fitch... Major clothing brands are under fire for using cotton produced by Uighurs in forced labor camps in China.
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00:30Many of the big suppliers, or I should say the big apparel firms, including companies
00:37like Patagonia or Gap, Nike, have in the past sourced from Xinjiang, but I think one of
00:45the real challenges is that apparel supply chains are now so complex that companies don't
00:53even necessarily know who all of their suppliers are, or even if they can identify all of the
01:00suppliers, it's hard for them to know that the cotton itself, 80% of China's cotton is
01:05grown in Xinjiang, whether the cotton itself comes from Xinjiang.
01:23I think it's important to understand that Uyghurs are already living lives of
01:53extraordinary constraint.
01:55They are monitored in all aspects of their lives.
01:59They even have officials move into their homes to observe their behavior, and so when they
02:05enter into these state-run labor schemes, or they are employed by factories that have
02:12close relations with the state, that level of surveillance doesn't go away, and so it's
02:17impossible for people to, for example, speak on a factory floor to an independent inspector
02:27without fear that something will happen to them and to their family members.
02:31They can't necessarily leave the jobs.
02:34If they have complaints about how they're being treated in those factories or in those
02:39jobs, there's no way for them to advance those claims and get some sort of positive outcome
02:46without fearing reprisals either from the factory itself, the management, the company,
02:51or the local authorities.
03:17And let me be clear.
03:18There have been violent attacks by Uyghurs in the region, but they are very small-scale,
03:24and while states have an obligation to provide public security, the correct response is not
03:30to treat the entire population of the region or of that ethnic community as terrorists
03:36when there is literally no evidence to support that claim.
03:40Think about what you're buying and whether you have other options that you have more
04:06confidence in.
04:07But also, for the Uyghurs, they need the world's help in holding accountable the Chinese government
04:18officials who are responsible for gross human rights violations in the region, and every
04:23government that says it cares about human rights should be pursuing that as a top priority.