Uyghurs
- Details
- Published on Sunday, 29 November -0001 16:00
- Written by editor
Is HUGO BOSS profiting from forced labor? The luxury brand is tied to suppliers in a Chinese region where hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs are forced to work on plantations and cotton manufactures.
Tell HUGO BOSS to immediately cut Uyghur forced labor out of its supply chain.
A,
Half a million Uyghur forced laborers break their backs daily on the cotton fields of East Turkestan (Uyghur autonomous region of Xinjiang, People’s Republic, China). Far away from their homes and families, they are exploited as unpaid and cheap labor on state-run plantations and manufactures, picking and processing cotton for fashion brands like HUGO BOSS.
SumOfUs confronted HUGO BOSS about its involvement in these human rights violations in East Turkestan -- but the company refuses to take definitive measures to cut Uyghur forced labor from its supply chain.
The fashion giant depends on its image as an expensive, luxury brand -- a scandal on forced labor would challenge this. Together we can... publicly force HUGO BOSS to address the issues and to clean up its supply chain.
HUGO BOSS are doing everything to keep the lid on this dirty secret, let’s make sure everyone knows the company is enabling repression.
East Turkestan is one of the largest cotton production and export regions and produces 20% of the world’s cotton. According to the Australian Policy Institute, BOSS and other global fashion brands, work with suppliers that employ Uyghur forced laborers.
Our friends at the End Forced Uyghur Labour Coalition demand that HUGO BOSS signs the call to action and have identified immediate steps that HUGO BOSS must take to end labor exploitation in East Turkestan:
- Close collaboration with relevant organizations, to put an end to the human rights abuses in East Turkestan within a concrete timeframe
- Total transparency along the supply chain, inclusive of all sub-suppliers that are based in and outside of East Turkestan
- Taking appropriate action, such as the termination of trade relations to keep HUGO BOSS’ supply chain free of forced labor
Can you help them to meet their demands? SumOfUs members have successfully stood with Uyghurs in the past: last year, together, we forced Apple to take steps to uphold human rights and to protect the freedom of expression of its users in China. Today, you can get HUGO BOSS to protect the rights of Uyghurs.
Thanks for all that you do,
Vicky and the team at SumOfUs
More information:
Uyghurs for sale, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 1 March 2020. Chinese celebs, netizens slam 'two-faced' Hugo Boss over Xinjiang, Reuters, 27 March 2021.
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