Do you know where the cotton in your favourite sweater was sourced? Do you know who made it and if they were justly compensated for their work? If you’re hoping that years of vigilant observation of clothing production has made a difference in the ethics of fashion, then you hope in vain. The fashion industry is yet another time in trouble with the ethical part of the production chain. China is the new sinner, but if you hope that maybe this time, it is just a minor issue and that the industry has learned something through the years with constant attention and the critic it has gotten, you are completely wrong!
Over the past few years, China has imprisoned millions of Uighurs and other ethnic minorities in so called “re-education camps” similar to concentration camps. The current situation reminds of the second world war concentration camps built by the nazis, and that alone is disturbing. Imagine a reality filled with dehumanising practices meant to strip Chinese Muslims of their identity; where torture, rape, hard physical labour are part of peoples every day. Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has, in total, identified 380 camps being built across the Xinjiang region in China, and it does not look like they are slowing down the constructions of them, even though the last couple of months have received condemnation from the rest of the world. The most disturbing thing is that it has already been going on for three years, making the horror seem unstoppable.
Picture https://bit.ly/3l8ibBz
The Uighurs is a mainly Muslim ethnic minority group consisting of around 11 million people who primarily live in Xinjiang. In recent years China has implemented restrictions involving police checkpoints, sweeping surveillance, video camera surveillance etc. to keep track of Uighurs and other ethnic monitories in Xinjiang. Chinas justification for imprisoning these minority groups is to prevent terrorism and stop Islamic extremism. But this is not the case and should not be accepted as an excuse or even as a plausible explanation for what is happening.
The camps have some of the most deplorable working conditions imaginable, and as previously mentioned, they are similar to the labour camps from the second world war. You may be wondering what this has to do with the fashion industry? Many do not know that the Xinjiang region a major source of raw materials for the clothing industry in the form of cotton. Xinjiang is responsible for 84% of the Chinese cotton production and circa 20% of the world's cotton production. In 2018-2019 China produced 3500-ton cotton, which partially is used for clothing. This shows that approximately one out of five of cotton products is derived from Xinjiang, which means that we cannot get around that some of our beloved and favourite fashion brands are connected to suppliers that exploit these imprisoned people living under inhumane conditions. Already reports have shown that Adidas, Chanel, Hérmes, LMVH, Nike, Levis and many more are guilty of this. Several brands have come forward saying that they have stopped cooperating with suppliers connected to the Xinjiang factories and then unsurprisingly use the same old excuse of the complex value chain and claiming that they did not know that their cotton was derived from the concentration camps. But this is no excuse; they are the ones responsible for knowing the details of their own supply chain!
Lamentably, the connection between the re-education camps and the fashion industry is still a relatively unknown fact to many as these news have managed to go by undetected by most major news outlets. However, with knowledge comes power, and as informed consumers, we hold all the power. When we educate ourselves and consistently investigate, we can pressure brands to have a better overview of their suppliers and which conditions their labourers are working and living under. In general, we need to keep demanding transparency and stay informed! This is definitely not a problem we will allow to be overlooked; we will follow the situation closely and update you through the blog, and in the next number of The Critical Pulse!
Stay tuned… Sources 1. https://enduyghurforcedlabour.org 2. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/jul/23/virtually-entire-fashion-industry-complicit-in-uighur-forced-labour-say-rights-groups-china 3. https://www.statista.com/statistics/263055/cotton-production-worldwide-by-top-countries/ 4. https://www.icij.org/investigations/china-cables/china-cables-who-are-the-uighurs-and-why-mass-detention/