An Apple spokesman told the publication that the company confirmed that Lens Technology “has not received any transfer of labor from Uighur workers in Xinjiang.” The company’s supplier progress report states that Apple performed 1,142 “reviews” across its supply chain in 49 different countries in 2019 to enforce its Supplier Code of Conduct and Supplier Responsibility Standards, but if refused to inform the Post whether Lens was among the companies it audited. In November, Apple spokesman Josh Rosenstock told the Post that the company “conducted a detailed investigation with our suppliers in China and found no evidence of forced labor on Apple’s production lines”.
The issue of Uighur forced labor in China has gained greater attention this year; Congress introduced a bill earlier this year that would prevent products made with forced labor in the Uighur region of China from entering the United States and that companies would be held responsible for such human rights violations. The project was approved by the Chamber in September, but has since been revealed by both The information and The Washington Post that Apple paid to lobby Congress to essentially dilute the bill. Nike and Coca-Cola have also been lobbying against potential legislation through lobbying. Although it has already passed the House, the Senate has yet to vote.
Publicly, Apple has been consistent in its stance on forced labor: CEO Tim Cook testified at a Congressional hearing in July, saying “forced labor is abhorrent. We wouldn’t tolerate it at Apple. Cook also said the company would end any relationship with suppliers that used forced labor – but the Post says Lens Technology is one of the “at least five” companies in Apple’s supply chain that allegedly use forced labor.
This is not the first time that Apple has been criticized for its labor practices in China. For much of the past decade, the company has dealt with problems arising from poor working conditions at factories across China, perhaps most notably at Foxconn’s manufacturing facilities. The company appears to have made things better in recent years, but problems still persist, such as more recent complaints about reports from student workers in factories. Similarly, both Amazon and Tesla also had their share of complaints about labor violations and abuse of foreign workers.
Buzzfeed News has reported extensively on potential human rights violations in the Xinjiang region of China, detailing how the country has built a large number of prison camps in recent years, while intensifying a campaign against minority Muslim groups such as Uighurs. Yesterday, the publication revealed that it had found evidence from more than 100 factory buildings right on the site of the prison camps, where it could force detainees to work. All said, Buzzfeed News estimates that more than one million Muslim minorities have been detained in China since 2016.
China, for its part, is working with the European Union on an investment agreement that would include clauses that the country “would make sustained and sustained efforts” to combat the ban on forced labor. Given the alleged mass arrest and forced labor in the Xinjiang region, however, China clearly has a lot of work to do before its claims to tackle the problem can be taken seriously.