A screenshot from the report. Note, Uyghur and Uighur are both acceptable spellings.
A religious minority group, rounded up and sent to concentration camps. There they face forced labor, torture, rape, and other forms of degradation. The world turns a blind eye for many years, until global conflict makes it impossible to ignore. No, I’m not talking about Germany’s treatment of Jewish people in the late 1930’s into the 1940’s. I’m talking about Uighur Muslims in China.
I won’t go too much into the details here, but you really should read up if you’re not aware about what’s going on in China. To put it shortly, the Chinese government believes religion is its enemy. Religion can give people a sense of community and faith, things the Chinese government would prefer only comes from them. There is a religious minority group of Muslims in China, called the Uighurs. Currently, China is rounding these people up and forcing them to go to “reeducation” camps. There, they are starved, raped, forced to watch rape, beaten, tortured, sterilized, experimented on, and killed. These crimes against humanity have faced little rebuke at a global scale.
A report claims that a number of companies are using forced labor. Uighur Muslims have been sent all over the country, bought by companies for cheap labor. As it turns out, over 80 world-renown brands have benefited from this program. Two Apple suppliers and the factory that assembles iPhones have participated in China’s forced labor program.
Parts from that iPhone in your pocket were built by slaves.
The Report
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute put out a report this year. They claimed that more than 80 brands from around the world, including Apple, Google, Microsoft, HP, Samsung, Dell, Sony, Nintendo, Amazon, Acer, HTC, Lenovo, Huawei, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Fila, Adidas, Nike, and many more. Two of Apple’s suppliers are on the list. There’s BOE Technology Group, which makes Apple’s screens, and O-Film, which supplies cameras for Apple devices, like iPhones and iPads. Finally, there’s Foxconn itself, responsible for assembling iPhones.
According to the report, over the last two years, China moved over 80,000 Uighurs into factories around the country. There, they live at the factories, and work long hours. The conditions at these factories are reportedly below the standard for factories in the region, and are clearly examples of forced labor. These were people who were moved out of Chinese concentration camps into forced labor factories.
27 factories, supplying at least 83 large brands, have purchased Uighur labor from the Chinese Government under a policy it calls “Xinjiang Aid.” These people had little choice in the matter. Go to work or stay in the camps. Forced labor is better than torture, rape, and other atrocities. The Uigurs often choose labor camps over reeducation camps.
The report does claim that it’s possible that companies did not know where the labor in their factories originated from. However, many claim to do audits of their factories. Had Apple or any of them visited these factories, they would have seen the truth. The problem? Tim Cook did visit one of them in 2017. He may have seen the same thing he’d see if he visited today. The Washington Post did just that, and did not paint a nice picture.
Prison Factories
Barbed wire fences, watch towers, and facial recognition define the factories. Photo: Anna Fifield/The Washington Post
The Washington Post visited one of these forced labor factories, though not the same one Tim Cook visited in 2017. It’s possible, then, that conditions could be worse at this factory than the one Apple’s using. This one assembled sneakers for Nike, specifically the “Shox” sneakers, with the springs in the heels. I always wanted a pair of those as a kid, because running hurt my knees and ankles, but they were too expensive. How they cost so much, knowing they’ve always been built with under-payed labor, and now slave labor, is beyond me.
Workers can leave the factories to go out into the surrounding area, but their movements are closely tracked. They can go to local shops, and often try to find Halal food, despite the fact that the government has banned restaurants from advertising their food as Halal. However, their dorm-like rooms (though smaller than what you’d picture a college dorm to look like) are still their homes. They’re housed at the factories they work at, and those factories look and operate like prisons.
Workers are tracked, their behavior is closely monitored, and walls are covered in pro-China propaganda. Furthermore, these factories have “Psychological Dredging Offices,” which track the behavior and thoughts of the workers. The goal here is to turn them away from their community and faith, and appreciate the Chinese Government for “giving” them a job. Of course, these people were forced to either work here or go to a concentration camp where they’ll be tortured, so it’s not much of a choice.
Apple’s Missing Accountability Report
Apple’s own assessment from the 2019 report shows how they score themselves out of 100.
Outside of the other difficulties in today’s pandemic climate, part of the reason I didn’t report on this in early March was that I wanted to see Apple’s accountability response. Every year, Apple releases their “Supplier Responsibility Progress Report.” In this report, Apple discusses their efforts to improve workplaces around the globe, improve their environmental impact, and control where their products come from. They haven’t done a great job with this in the past. Parts for electronics come from around the world. People in lousy factory conditions assemble products, and cobalt, tin, and other metals come from mines that use child labor. Still, Apple has been trying to improve.
Apple releases this report every year. In the past three years, they’ve released the report in March. The 2019 and 2018 reports came within the first week of March. In 2017, it was in the last week of March. However, this year, we’re well into April, and Apple still has not released their supplier report.
There could be multiple reasons for this. Apple claims they only just learned of the forced Uighur labor in their suppliers’ factories. Therefore, they may have wanted to conduct their own investigation and take action before putting out a report that lacked important details. They may have also been slowed down for the same reason I was, the same reason that even businesses that are open right now are struggling: COVID-19. Productivity plummets in a pandemic, even when employees are working from home.
Apple’s Response
Still, so far, all we’ve heard from Apple about the forced labor camps used during China’s ethnic cleansing is this statement from Joe Rosenstock from Apple:
“Apple is dedicated to ensuring that everyone in our supply chain is treated with the dignity and respect they deserve. We have not seen this report but we work closely with all our suppliers to ensure our high standards are upheld.”
Two sentences that don’t give me much comfort about the fact that my screen and camera were built by slaves, swept away from their homes, their families, and their lives.
Apple is one of the largest, most successful, and wealthiest companies in the world. They control a power that no one company should have. Still, what actions have they taken against these atrocities? At the end of the day, Apple and at least 83 other companies are still rewarding human rights abuses.
Sources:
- BBC Staff, BBC News
- Luke Dormehl, Cult of Mac
- Anna Fifield, The Washington Post
- Isobel Asher Hamilton, Business Insider
- Simina Mistreanu, Forbes
- Jason Murdock, Newsweek
- Vicky Xiuzhong Xu, Danielle Cage, Dr. James Leibold, Kelsey Munro, and Nathan Ruser, Australian Strategic Policy Institute