Hundreds of thousands of members of the Uyghur minority are also employed in the cotton industry in Xinjiang. The majority of the cotton harvest, this is also confirmed by media research and international studies NGOs, takes place in conditions classified as forced labour. The US government has therefore imposed an import ban on cotton from Xinjiang. Large Western sports companies have also put them on the index for their products.
Exploitation of Uyghurs – also at DBB outfitters Peaks?
Among the companies suspected of profiting from the organized exploitation of Uyghur workers is also Peaks. A Chinese sportswear manufacturer that is, among other things, the official outfitter of the German Basketball Association (DBB). The national teams have been playing since 2013, as have the teams in the junior national leagues NBBL and JBBLwith jerseys from Peaks. The kit of the best German basketball players and youth teams – made by a company that employs forced laborers? In the official DBB fan shop are also t shirts and sweater with cotton on offer. Cotton picked by Uyghur slave laborers?
Conclusive evidence for this is hard to come by. This is mainly due to the non-transparent production processes in China’s textile industry, which is largely closed to foreign observers, like the rest of the Chinese economy. There is no reliable information about the origin and production of a shirt that eventually appears in the DBB shop.
Peaks–CEO: “I support Xinjiang cotton!”
requests of ARD to the Peaks-Head office on production sites and suppliers went unanswered. But there is strong evidence that Peaks Cotton processed from Xinjiang. The company’s CEO, Xu Zhihua, had expressly acknowledged this himself last year.
“Peaks bought Xinjiang cotton and Chinese cotton as a Chinese brand! A Chinese brand, made in China! I support Xinjiang cotton!” he wrote Peak CEO in a patriotic tone on Weibo, the Chinese Twitter. As proof, he also provided a copy of a long-term supply contract that Peaks with the company Xinjiang Litai Silu (“Silk Road“) investments has completed.
Uyghurs shipped from internment camps to textile factories
But it’s not just about the cotton from the Uyghur province. The entire Chinese textile industry is considered to be burdened: Uyghur workers, including many young women, are also sent to textile factories in other Chinese provinces. Within the framework of state-orchestrated work programs that are officially intended to combat poverty in rural areas. In truth, according to the Australian Political Research Institute ASPI, but this also takes place under duress. Accompanied by intimidation and threats by state envoys, including against members of the Uyghur workers. Some of them are said to have been shipped directly from the notorious detention camps to the major industrial centers in eastern China.