Nijat Turghun, spokesperson for the Sweden Uighur Education Association. Credit: Nathalie Rothschild / Radio Sweden
The Sweden Uyghur Education Association has endorsed a call to major global brands, including Sweden’s H&M and Electrolux, to help end human-rights abuses in China by severing ties to any factory accused of using forced labour.
Nijat Turghun, a spokesperson for the Uyghur Education Association in Sweden, which along with nearly 200 civil-society organisations and labour unions has joined the Coalition to End Forced Labour, told Radio Sweden:
Many transnational companies are involved in forced labour. They are benefitting from it… But we try to remind them, we try to to prevent them from staying on the wrong side.
Turghun called the Uighurs Muslims’ situation “a global, humanitarian issue” and urged Swedish brands to ensure they remove the Chinese factories suspected of using forced labour from their supply chains.
In a written statement to Radio Sweden, H&M said it strictly prohibits any type of forced labour and that it does not work with any garment manufacturing factories located in the Xinjiang region, which is home to many ethnic minority groups, including the Uyghurs. Nor does the clothing company source any products from the area, according to the statement.
Electrolux also provided a written statement to Radio Sweden, stating that the company has been in repeated contact with the senior management of the supplier accused of using forced labour and that the supplier “denies any usage of forced labor and confirms adherence to international labor regulations and the Electrolux policies”.
