Nanchang, China
In a bustling Muslim quarter of Nanchang City, a huge Chinese factory produces computer screens, cameras and fingerprint scanners for a supplier to international tech giants such as Apple and Lenovo. Throughout the neighborhood, women wearing a headscarf are walking the streets and Arab signs announce halal supermarkets and noodle shops.
However, the Uyghurs, mainly Muslims, who work in the factory, are isolated in a fortified enclosure fortified with security cameras and guards at the entrance. Their outings are limited to rare accompanied trips, they are not allowed to worship or cover their heads, and they must take special courses in the evening, according to former and current workers and traders in the region.
The connection between OFILM, the supplier that owns the Nanchang plant, and the tech giants is the latest sign that companies outside of China are benefiting from coercive work practices imposed on Uighurs, a Turkish ethnic group and other minorities.
In the past four years, the Chinese government has detained more than one million people in the far west of Xinjiang, mostly Uighurs, in internment camps and prisons where they undergo ideological and behavioral re-education. forced. China has long suspected the Uyghurs of nurturing separatist tendencies because of their distinct culture, language and religion.
When detainees “leave” camps, documents show, many are sent to work in factories. A dozen Uighurs and Kazakhs told the AP that they knew of people sent by the state to work in factories in eastern China, known as inner China – some of the camps, others torn from their families, others from vocational schools. Most were forcibly sent, although in some cases it was not clear that they had consented.
Workers are often enrolled in classes where state-sponsored teachers teach courses in Mandarin, the dominant language of China, or in politics and “ethnic unity.” Conditions of employment vary in terms of pay and restrictions.
At the OFILM factory, Uyghurs are paid in the same way as other workers, but otherwise treated differently, depending on the residents of the neighborhood. They are not allowed to leave or pray – unlike the Hui Muslim migrants who also work there, who are considered less threatening by the Chinese government.
“They don’t let them worship inside,” said a Hui Muslim woman who worked in the factory for several weeks alongside the Uighurs. “They don’t let them out.”
“If you are Uighur, you are only allowed out twice a month,” said a small business owner who spoke to the workers. The PA does not disclose the names of those interviewed near the factory for the sake of possible reprisals. “The government chose them to come to OFILM, they did not choose it.”
The Chinese government says the labor program is a means of training Uighurs and other minorities and providing them with jobs. China’s foreign ministry on Monday called for concern about the possibility of forced labor under the “baseless” and “slander” program.
However, experts say that, like the internment camps, the program is part of a larger attack on Uighur culture, severing social and family ties by sending people away from home to be assimilated into Chinese culture. Han dominant.
“They think these people are poorly educated, isolated, backward, can’t speak Mandarin,” said James Leibold, a specialist in Chinese ethnic politics at La Trobe University in Melbourne. “So what are you doing? You” educate “them, you find ways to transform them to your image. Bringing them to the heart of the Chinese Han is a way to energize this transformation.”
The OFILM website indicates that workers in Xinjiang manufacture screens, protective lenses for cameras and fingerprint scanners. He touts customers like Apple, Samsung, Lenovo, Dell, HP, LG, and Huawei, although the AP has no way of tracking specific products for specific companies.
Apple’s most recent supplier list, released in January of last year, includes three OFILM factories in Nanchang. It is not known whether the specific OFILM factory that the AP visited twice in Nanchang supplies Apple, but it has the same address as the one listed. Another OFILM factory is located about 800 meters down another street. Apple has not responded to repeated requests for clarification on which plant it uses.
In an email, Apple said its code of conduct requires suppliers to “provide channels that encourage employees to voice concerns.” He said he interviewed supplier employees during annual assessments in their local language in the absence of their managers, and had conducted 44,000 interviews in 2018.
Lenovo confirmed that it was purchasing screens, cameras and fingerprint scanners from OFILM, but said it was not aware of the allegations and would investigate. Lenovo also highlighted a 2018 audit by the Reliable Business Alliance in which OFILM achieved very good results.
All of the companies that responded said they required suppliers to meet strict labor standards. LG and Dell said they have “no evidence” of forced labor in their supply chains, but they will investigate, as will Huawei. HP did not respond.
OFILM also lists as clients dozens of companies in China, as well as international companies which it calls “partners” without specifying which product it offers. And it supplies PAR Technology, a US vendor of sales systems to which it recently shipped 48 cartons of touch screens in February, according to U.S. customs data obtained through ImportGenius and Panjiva, which track shipment data.
PAR technology, in turn, indicates that it supplies terminals to large chains such as McDonald’s, Taco Bell and Subway. However, the AP was unable to confirm that OFILM products are found with fast food companies.
McDonald’s said it asked PAR Technology to suspend purchases from OFILM while launching an immediate investigation. PAR Technology also said it would investigate immediately. Subway and Taco Bell did not respond.
The OFILM confirmed having received requests for comments from AP but did not respond. Its website indicates that the company “answered the government call” and went to Xinjiang to recruit minorities, as part of an effort to lift them out of poverty and help them “study and improve. ” He recruited more than 3,000 young men and women from Xinjiang as of 2017.
A report released Sunday by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, studied separately from the AP, estimated that more than 80,000 Uighurs were transferred from Xinjiang to factories across China between 2017 and 2019. The report said it found “conditions which strongly suggest forced labor”, in accordance with International Labor Organization Definitions.
The PA also reported a year ago that Uighur forced labor was used in Xinjiang to make sportswear that ended up in the United States.
This story was reported by the Associated Press.
