Because of forced labor by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) against Uyghurs in Xinjiang Province, several major brands, including H&M, Nike, Adidas, and Burberry, have expressed concerns over cotton produced in the region. Instead of addressing these concerns with transparency and respect for human rights, the CCP bluntly criticized these businesses, threatening to boycott their products. Western firms are again facing a crossroads of safeguarding their principles or yielding to the totalitarian regime. This incident is new, but the existence of slave labor in China and the tactics by the CCP to cover it up have existed for at least two decades. In this article, we review the slave labor imposed on Falun Gong practitioners since July 1999 when the CCP began to persecute the mind-body spiritual discipline also known as Falun Dafa. From 16 to 70-Year-Old, Up to 19 Hours of Work Per Day Before the collapse of the force labor camp system in China in 2013, there were over 300 labor camps in China. More than 95% of people held in the labor camps were Falun Gong practitioners. Furthermore, over 100,000 practitioners are kept in about 700 prisons in the country. Nearly all detained practitioners at these facilities were forced to do slave labor. The products include all kinds of daily articles, such as toothpicks, chopsticks, medical cotton swabs, injection bags, food bags, cell phone cases, soccer balls, footballs, stamp albums, candy, moon cakes, car mats, winter coats, embroidery, leather bags, ornaments, and crafts, According to reports from Minghui, detained Falun Gong practitioners, from 16-year-old to 70-year-old, were forced to work somewhere between 12 and 19 hours a day. When they failed to finish their tasks on time, they had to work over time to catch up. Ms. Liu Youqiing, a practitioner in her 50s, was forced to work at Wuhan Women’s Prison. From morning to evening, she was forced to sit on a small stool unraveling fabric. The workload was heavy and she could not finish even by midnight. As punishment, the guards forced her to stand about three steps away from a wall and lean against the wall with only her head as torture. She unraveled fabric like this for 18 days and the guards did not allow to sleep in bed even for one day. A lot of food products were actually made with slave labor. When one practitioner detained at Yunnan Women’s Labor Camp refused to process cookies, the guards asked why. She said the food produced did not meet even the most basic sanitary requirement. “Look at the bags of flour that are stacked on ground with machines full of dust. The toilets have feces and urine all over, and one could barely go in. After using the bathroom, there are no towels to dry the hands,” she said, “If we do not want to eat these cookies ourselves, why do we want to cheat others? I am a Falun Gong practitioner following the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. I cannot do that.” It is well known that Chinese prisons produce goods for exportation. There is hardly any cost and the labor is free. There have been reports that towels used for cleaning in funeral homes were transported to prisons to produce gloves.
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