Targeting China, EU seeks to ban products made with forced labour

In a move to target China, concerned about human rights violations in the province of Xinjiang, the 27-member country European Union (EU) seeks to ban products made with forced labour.

Products made with forced labour or those imported into the EU will be banned under draft EU rules, according to an EU document, reported Business Recorder.

The move was prompted by pressure from EU lawmakers who raised profound concerns over systematic human rights violations and their widespread effect on individuals and minorities in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

"Such prohibition should apply to products for which forced labour has been used at any stage of their production, manufacture, harvest and extraction, including working or processing related to the products," the document said.

 

However, the European Commission's draft rules are less far-reaching than what EU lawmakers have proposed due in part to legal constraints. The EU executive will need to discuss details with them and EU countries before the rules become law, reported Business Recorder.

"The prohibition should apply to all products, including their components, and should apply to products regardless of the sector, the origin, whether they are domestic or imported, or placed or made available on the Union market or exported."

The paper said that the rules target larger economic operators such as importers, manufacturers, producers and product suppliers because the risks of forced labour are most prevalent and the impact likely to be the largest.

The onus however is on national authorities to prove that forced labour was involved in making and processing the products, reported Business Recorder.

Meanwhile, a UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Modern Slavery's report has found it "reasonable to conclude" that forced labour has been taking place in China's Xinjiang province.

The report found that Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other Turkic groups have been subjected to repressive and abusive practices as part of Chinese state-mandated forced labour systems.

"New UN Special Rapporteur's Report on Contemporary Forms of Slavery concludes that forced labour is taking place in Xinjiang," Adrian Zenz, a China researcher tweeted, along with a copy of the report.

The Special Rapporteur, Tomoya Obokata, further found that "the nature and extent of powers exercised" meant that "some instances may amount to enslavement as a crime against humanity."

UN human rights experts have raised serious concerns about the alleged detention and forced labour of Muslim Uyghurs in China, calling for unhindered access to the country to conduct fact-finding missions and urging global and domestic companies to closely scrutinize their supply chains.

Uyghur workers have reportedly been subjected to exploitative working and abusive living conditions that may constitute arbitrary detention, human trafficking, forced labour and enslavement by use of forced labour.