Representatives of the trade sector of the European Union (EU) have been using the guidelines of the International Labor Organization (ILO) for a long time and are also calling on Beijing to follow them, writes Politico.
The main concern for EU traders is the possibility that China could use forced labor to pick and process cotton and manufacture solar panels. The main problem is that China hardly follows the ILO rules.
Adrian Zenz, a leading researcher on China’s repressive policies, casts doubt on China’s enforcement of the ILO’s rules, a UN agency, in his latest study, saying they are primarily designed to prevent commercial rather than politically motivated exploitation of people. In other words, when Chinese officials assign Uyghurs to work in Xinjiang, it is not a search for cheap labor. It is a high-level political campaign to force minority members to submit to the Communist Party.
Cenz believes that this is why ILO provisions cannot address the problem, and his research shows that the ILO largely fails to address the elements of forced labor in China’s system against the Uyghurs. The researcher refers to the 11 indicators developed by the ILO, which allow the evaluation of forced labor, stating that they work in cases where it is a question of individual companies or economic sectors. State-organized
forced labor is difficult to detect, especially in places where individuals are not allowed to express themselves freely.
According to the proposal of the European Commission (EC), the definition of forced labor organized by the state should be harmonized with Article 105 of the ILO Convention, which states that it is forbidden to use forced labor as a punishment for expressing political opinions, for economic purposes, as a method of discipline or punishment for participation in strikes, as also as a form of racial, religious or other discrimination. China signed the ILO agreement in August 2022.
It is very difficult for foreign companies to conduct an in-depth study of China’s work environment using ILO guidelines. First, it is almost impossible to get information from eyewitnesses. Most of the workers are in a closed environment even if they have no convictions. In other cases, forced labor involves children who are told that the work is part of the learning process.
Mamutjan Erkin, a former school teacher in the Artush region, remembers how children’s work on farms was organized: “From 5:30 AM, the kids would need to be in front of the school and the bus would take them to where they needed to be. This will continue for 15 days. If they were the kids of political prisoners, then cotton picking would go up to either a month or a month and a half.” He told Politico that the children worked until 7:30 in the evening, and
if a child did not show up one day, his whole family had to work the next day.
The former teacher noted that at that time he did not understand what forced labor was.
The second reason is that forced labor is no longer limited to factories or farms in the Xinjiang region. As the West ponders whether and how to restrict exports of products made there, in recent years there have been reports of Uyghurs being employed in factories hundreds of kilometers from their homes, and human rights groups say Uyghurs have been forcibly displaced.
The EU proposal emphasizes the need for European companies to conduct thorough research and evaluation of their supply chains. Beijing makes this task difficult. The Chinese government is currently tightening controls on foreign companies’ work in China, and restricting access to various documents.