Teenage Uyghur Girls Are Forced to Work at a Garment Factory while Facing Abuse

21-07-2023

Marios Putro

South and East Asia Human Rights Researcher

Global Human Rights Defence

An investigation by Radio Free Asia revealed that some 90 young Uyghur females are imprisoned in a Chinese-run clothing factory in Xinjiang, where they are required to work 14 hours per day, seven days per week, and frequently endure verbal and physical abuse.

According to four sources, including a village chief and the factory's security chief, who all spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely, the Wanhe Garment Co. Ltd. in Maralbeshi County has a covert agreement with the nearby Yarkant 2nd Vocational High School under which female students between the ages of 16 and 18 are sent to work at the factory against their will.

The village chief, a woman who was in charge of persuading the parents to let the girls go, claimed that local authorities had exerted pressure on them not to oppose putting their kids to work at the plant. Workers at the plant, which also employs a few males and about a dozen women in their 30s and 40s, are unable to leave. On the plant grounds, they snooze in dorms. However, 15 Chinese workers from other countries are Uyghurs in the majority.  

The news comes amid growing evidence of Uyghur forced labor in Xinjiang and claims that major corporations' supply lines use forced labor. Fast Retailing, the parent company of Uniqlo, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, and BMW have all been under enhanced examination to make sure they aren't utilizing Uyghur forced labor. Inditex, the owner of the Zara clothing brand, is also under increased investigation. According to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which was passed into law in the United States in December 2021, American businesses who import products from Xinjiang must demonstrate that none of the products' stages of production involved the use of Uyghur forced labor (Hoshur, 2023).

The majority of the people working at the clothing factory are from Maralbeshi, or Bachu in Chinese, in Kashgar province, the region of Xinjiang that produces the most cotton.  The employees, who range in age from 16 to 45, work three shifts from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., with hour-long breaks for lunch and dinner, according to the security head. The guard and village leader said that their monthly pay was at most 300 or 400 yuan ($42 or $56). The guard stated that the workers were "forcefully brought to the factory to work, and they could not leave the factory of their own free will."

China has signed two international conventions against forced labor which are set to be ratified on the 12th of August, 2023. Namely, these two conventions are the Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957 (no. 105) and the Forced Labor Convention 1930, (no. 29). According to the Abolition of Forced Labor Convention, each of the member states who have ratified this Convention have to undertake to suppress and not to make any use of any forced or compulsory labor (ILO, 1957). Similarly, according to the Forced Labor Convention provisions, member states have to suppress any forms of forced or compulsory labor within a short period (ILO, 1930). In addition, China has ratified the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, since 2002, which requires the member states to take immediate and effective measures to secure the elimination and prohibition of the worst forms of child labor as a matter of urgency (ILO, 1999). In this case, China is violating the Convention by not implementing the necessary mechanisms to eliminate child labor in the aforementioned example of the clothing firm. In particular, China seems to be violating Article 5 of the Convention by not complying with worker’s and employer’s organisations to establish the mechanisms to monitor the implementation of the provisions of the Convention and thus allowing such an incident to take place. 

Sources:

Convention C029 - Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29). (1930, June 28). Retrieved August 7, 2023, from https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO:12100:P12100_INSTRUMENT_ID:312174:NO 

Convention C105 - Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957 (No. 105). (1957, June 25). Retrieved August 7, 2023, from https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO:12100:P12100_INSTRUMENT_ID:312250:NO 

Convention C182 - Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182). (1999, June 17). Retrieved August 7, 2023, from https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO:12100:P12100_INSTRUMENT_ID:312327:NO

Hoshur, S. (2023c, July 15). Facing abuse, teenage Uyghur girls are forced to work in a Xinjiang garment factory. Radio Free Asia. Retrieved July 21, 2023, from https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/uyghur-forced-labor-factory-07142023151509.html