A report today suggests that T-shirts of Apple Store staff were made by a Chinese company that is believed to have used forced labor in its production.
The claims against the clothing company have been taken seriously enough to impose US sanctions …
The guard reports.
Apple has imported clothing – probably uniforms for store staff – from a company serving U.S. sanctions against forced labor at a subsidiary in China’s western Xinjiang region, shipping records show.
The details come a week after Apple CEO Tim Cook told the US Congress that he would not tolerate forced labor as the current slavery in the company’s supply chains.
An Apple spokesman said the company had not confirmed to any of its suppliers at the time source of cotton from Xinjiang, but declined to comment on whether they had done so in the past.
In July, the US government imposed sanctions on Changji Esquel Textile, a unit of the Hong Kong clothing group Esquel, along with 10 other Chinese companies for alleged human rights violations in the Xinjiang region, including forced labor.
Evidence that suggests that Apple purchased staff t-shirts from the company seems strong.
One month before the sanctions were announced, Esquel had sent a shipment of cotton and elastane-knit shirts for women to “Apple Retail Stores” in California, the database run by the worldwide shipping information provider Panjiva. Those records were identified by the Tech Transparency Project […]
Documented in trade publications, and confirmed by shipping databases and Esquel itself, appears to focus mostly on uniforms worn by staff in Apple stores.
Until recently, Esquel’s website listed Apple as a “major customer” [and] Esquel’s CEO, John Cheh, highlighted Apple as a ‘major customer’ of the firm’s Vietnam arm, and provided photos of blue and red staff uniforms produced in its factories.
Although Esquel denies the allegation and proves the exact details of the entire supply chain is difficult, experts say it is almost impossible to produce anything in Xinjiang without at least being employees in the use of forced labor.
James Millward, professor of history at Georgetown University in Washington DC and author of Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang, said the entire region’s economy was tainted by Chinese communist party policies. […]
Even if the companies’ own factories can be certified free of forced labor, they often work with – or with the authorization of – the local governments that manage the abuse.
‘They do business with the province, they do business with local government, they do business with the XPCC, which all run concentration camps and are all involved in moving people in concentration camps in one kind of forced or involuntary labor like another, He said.
Apple has on several occasions been accused of forced labor in its supply chain. The company obviously finds the idea appalling and takes extensive steps to conduct audits of its suppliers. Back in 2018, the company won a Stop Slavery award.
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