UK faces pressure to ban imports linked to Uyghur forced labour in green tech supply chains

London [UK], August 7 (ANI): Leading human rights organisations, including Anti-Slavery International, Campaign for Uyghurs, Global Legal Action Network, Stop Uyghur Genocide, Unseen, the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP), and the World Uyghur Congress, have submitted written evidence to the UK Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, urging the UK to end its reliance on critical minerals sourced from China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (Uyghur Region), where widespread state-imposed forced labour continues to underpin industrial production.

According to the submission, reviewed and cited extensively by the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP), the UK's efforts to diversify supply chains for critical minerals, vital to the green energy transition, must be underpinned by a clear human rights framework. UHRP argues that the production of key minerals, including polysilicon, lithium, manganese, and aluminium, in the Uyghur Region is heavily tied to forced labour and coal-based energy, raising serious ethical and environmental concerns.

"The current system props up the Chinese government's apparatus of repression," stated UHRP, warning that companies operating in the Uyghur Region must be presumed complicit in forced labour due to the impossibility of conducting reliable human rights due diligence under the region's extreme surveillance and coercion.

The written evidence highlights how China's state-led Five-Year Plans have deliberately expanded mining and processing industries in the Uyghur Region, where an estimated 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims have been detained or subjected to forced labour since 2017. UHRP notes that more than 45% of the world's solar-grade polysilicon now comes from this region, with major solar manufacturers linked to labour transfer schemes.

Electric vehicle supply chains are similarly exposed. China now processes 44% of the world's lithium chemicals and dominates production of key battery components.

UHRP cites findings that implicate lithium and manganese producers in state-sponsored labour transfers, warning that most EV battery supply chains are tainted by Uyghur forced labour.

Aluminium and steel production also raise red flags. UHRP reports that nearly 12% of global aluminium production capacity is located in the Uyghur Region, with major smelters involved in labour transfer schemes. This concentration, paired with artificially low costs enabled by coal power and forced labour, distorts global markets and undermines ethical producers, the submission says.

UHRP calls on the UK government to introduce legislation banning the import of goods made with forced labour and align with allies like the US, which passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) in 2021. "Without legislative teeth, the UK risks embedding atrocity crimes in its renewable energy and manufacturing supply chains," UHRP warns.

The submission concludes with a call for the UK to lead on a "just transition" that prioritises both climate and human rights goals by building transparent, ethical, and resilient supply chains free from Uyghur forced labour. (ANI)

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