Press Release – For immediate release
25 November 2020
Contact: Coalition to End Uyghur Forced Labour enduyghurforcedlabour.org
or [email protected]

Coalition to End Uyghur Forced Labour – Coalition members submit group testimony, calling for Dutch apparel brands to exit the Uyghur region and the Dutch government to introduce mandatory due diligence legislation.

On Wednesday, the 25th of November, the Dutch House of Representatives will organize a roundtable session to inform Dutch MPs and apparel brands about the vast system of forced labour in the Uyghur region. During the session, Dutch apparel brands will engage in dialogue with MPs and experts on how to adequately address Uyghur forced labor potentially tainting the brands’ supply chains .

The roundtable comes amidst growing recognition of the system of forced labour, affecting factories and farms across the region and China, where the Chinese government has rounded up roughly 1-1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic and Muslim people into internment camps. It is the largest internment on the basis of ethnic and religious identity since World War II. Abuses include sterilisation, forced labour, family separation, mass arbitrary detention, and imprisonment.

Members and endorsers of the 300+ coalition to End Forced Uyghur Labor, including China Alarm, Project Cece, Schone Kleren Campagne, and World Uyghur Congress, submitted testimony in advance. The signatories to the submission urged the participating clothing and textile companies to take the necessary steps to ensure that they are not involved in Uyghur forced labour, by signing the Coalition’s Call to Action. Furthermore, the submission called upon the Dutch Government to take urgent action to ensure that businesses operating in the Netherlands are not benefitting from the abuses of the Uyghurs. Accordingly, the signatories urged the Dutch government to introduce mandatory due diligence legislation which compels Dutch businesses to prevent human rights abuses in their supply chains, including Uyghur forced labour, holding them liable if they fail to do so.

Read the full testimony here.