Xinjiang Sanctions James Cockayne

In Episode 4, James speaks with Chloe Cranston, Business and Human Rights Manager at Anti-Slavery International. James asks Chloe about what companies are doing in response to allegations of Xinjiang forced labour, and we he  ar about a new initiative in Brussels to prevent goods made with forced labour entering the European market.
Transcript
James Cockayne  0:00  
Welcome to Xinjiang Sanctions, a podcast looking at the global response to forced labour in Xinjiang, China. I'm James Cockayne, a Professor of Global Politics and Anti-Slavery at the University of Nottingham. I've been working on modern slavery and forced labour issues for the last decade and researching Xinjiang forced labour for the last year. You can see the results of that research at www.xinjiangsanctions.info. In this short podcast series, I speak with global experts to understand why forced labour emerged in Xinjiang and what governments and business are doing to try to address it. I'm pleased to be joined on this episode by Chloe Cranston, Business and Human Rights Manager at Anti-Slavery International. Welcome, Chloe. 
Chloe Cranston  0:44  
Hi, James. Thanks for having me. 
James Cockayne  0:46  
Tell us about Anti-Slavery International Chloe.
Chloe Cranston  0:48  
So Anti-Slavery International is considered the world's oldest human rights organisation. It was set up over 180 years ago as part of the original abolitionist movement. And it's worked all through that time in one form or another. And we now work to end contemporary forms of slavery. And we have four strategic themes which are: responsible business (which I manage), climate change in modern slavery, migration & trafficking and child slavery.
James Cockayne  1:17  
So almost two centuries of expertise then in fighting slavery and forced labour. Recently, Anti-Slavery International has helped mobilise an effort responding to Xinjiang forced labour. Can you tell us about that?
Chloe Cranston  1:29  
Yes. So we co-founded something called the Coalition to End Forced Labour in the Uyghur Region. And that coalition came about towards the end of 2019, the beginning of 2020. And essentially what happened there is various groups, labour rights groups, investors, anti-slavery groups, human rights groups, which have focused heavily for decades, on how the fashion industry is tainted with human rights abuses, complicit in human rights abuses. They we increasingly saw all the evidence that the fashion industry was directly tied to the forced labour of Uyghurs. And at the same time, obviously, and evidently, the Uyghur community was watching in horror as the fashion industry was failing to take action. So what we had was essentially, a group of us came together with this common objective, to unite to end the state's imposed forced labour and other human rights abuses against Uyghurs. And it's not only Uyghurs, it’s other Turkic and Muslim majority peoples in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. So we united and brought brought these groups together with this common cause. And I would say, you know, arguably, it is one of the biggest formalised human rights movements now in recent times. So the coalition is now supported by over 400 organisations, and that's faith based organisations, investors, as I said, many human rights and human rights organisations such as Human Rights Watch, in over 40 countries. So really a worldwide movement, and we have various focus areas. One is we're calling for companies to exit the Uyghur region. For governments and institutions such as the UN and the ILO to put pressure on the Chinese government, ultimately, to end the forced labour in the Uyghur region.
James Cockayne  3:16  
So as you mentioned, one of the key things the coalition has done is issue a call to action to companies to exit the Uyghur region. Are they listening?
Chloe Cranston  3:25  
So I would definitely say yes, so we publicly launched the coalition in July 2020.

In Episode 3, we hear from Anasuya Syam, Human Rights and Trade Policy Adviser at the Human Trafficking Legal Centre. James asks Anasuya about US import bans on goods made with Xinjiang forced labour, and the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.
 
Transcript
James Cockayne  0:00  
Welcome to Xinjiang Sanctions, a podcast looking at the global response to forced labour in Xinjiang, China. I'm James Cockayne, a Professor of Global Politics and Anti-Slavery at the University of Nottingham. I've been working on modern slavery and forced labour issues for the last decade and researching Xinjiang forced labour for the last year. You can see the results of that research at www.xinjiangsanctions.info. In this short podcast series, I speak with global experts to understand why forced labour emerged in Xinjiang and what governments and business are doing to try to address it. My guest today is Anasuya Syam, Human Rights and Trade Policy Advisor at the Human Trafficking Legal Center. Welcome Anasuya. 
Anasuya Syam  0:43  
Thanks, James. It's a pleasure to be here.
James Cockayne  0:44  
Tell us a bit about the Human Trafficking Legal Center, Anasuya.
Anasuya Syam  0:48  
Thanks, James. The Human Trafficking Legal Center is a nonprofit based in Washington DC. We serve as a pro bono clearing house that connects trafficking survivors with highly skilled legal representation to hold traffickers accountable. One of our primary areas of focus is labour trafficking in global supply chains. And we do this by conducting cutting edge research to identify gaps in services and system failures. And we also seek to transform systems to prevent forced labour in global supply chains. So a lot of our trade work fits into that. The, the idea that we want to have systems change to address forced labour.
James Cockayne  1:28  
So you mentioned supply chains there and your title is Human Rights and Trade Policy Advisor. What does trade policy have to do with human trafficking and especially in a place like Xinjiang? 
Anasuya Syam  1:41  
So trade policy for years now has had some links to addressing forced labour in global supply chains, the US has had an import prohibition against products made using forced labour, prison labour and forced child labour since 1930. So that's been 90 years in the books. But it's only really been since 2016, that the law was enforced by US Customs and Border Protection to the extent that we're seeing today. And what we're seeing right now is the start of a global trend. And this goes back to one of our core areas of work that I mentioned when I introduced the Centre, which is about transforming systems to prevent forced labour in global supply chains. And we're seeing trade policy rise up to that level to transform systems and the way business is done to make sure that this prevents the occurrence of forced labour in the future. So import bands are really coming up right now. And we can see these debates happening in the EU, in Australia, in Canada, and in many other countries. It's a very topical issue.
James Cockayne  2:52  
So as you said, there's been an import ban in place on the books in the United States for almost a century now. What is that? How does that work? Tell us a bit about the relevant law and how that's enforced. 
Anasuya Syam  3:06  
So the import ban is enshrined in Section 307 of the US Tariff Act of 1930. It has its roots in protectionism. When we are talking about when the law came about in 1930, it was to protect domestic US manufacturing. But since then, and as I mentioned earlier, when the law was improved in 2015, by an amendment under the Obama Biden administration, there was a loophole in the law that had kind of swallowed enforcement efforts. Because the import ban had an exception - goods that were not made in the United States to meet American demand, even if they were made using forced labour or prison labour overseas, they could still be imported into th

In Episode 2 of Xinjiang Sanctions, James speaks with Dr Adrian Zenz, Senior Fellow and Director of China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Dr Zenz explains how many people are affected by Xinjiang forced labour, and James asks him about his sources, methods and the challenges of working on this issue.
 
Transcript
James Cockayne  0:01  
Welcome to Xinjiang Sanctions, a podcast looking at the global response to forced labour in Xinjiang, China. I'm James Cockayne, a Professor of Global Politics and Anti-Slavery at the University of Nottingham. I've been working on modern slavery and forced labour issues for the last decade and researching Xinjiang forced labour for the last year. You can see the results of that research at www.xinjiangsanctions.info. In this short podcast series, I speak with global experts to understand why forced labour emerged in Xinjiang and what governments and business are doing to try to address it. My guest on this episode is Dr. Adrian Zenz Senior Fellow and Director of China studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Dr. Zenz, welcome to the podcast. 
Adrian Zenz  0:47  
Thank you. 
James Cockayne  0:47  
Dr. Zenz I thought we'd start with a question about the scale of this issue. How many people in and from Xinjiang have been subjected to forced labour?
Adrian Zenz  0:56  
Xinjiang is operating a very comprehensive system of forced labour – precisely, it is two different systems. One is through the Vocational Skills Education and Training Centres, which is the official sort of euphemism for the reeducation camps, the vocational camps, we can estimate at least several hundred thousand to be subjected to forced labour through that system. That's a conservative estimate. In addition, Xinjiang like the rest of China operates a programme called Poverty Alleviation through Labour Transfer. Labour transfers are a common feature of developing societies whereby agriculturalists, rural surplus labourers really, are being transferred to secondary and tertiary sector jobs industry, typically manufacturing. And of course, you find that throughout the world, throughout China, but in Xinjiang, and to some extent in Tibet, the programme is coercive, because it fulfils a political and other goals other than economic and there's a real distinct aspect of coercion to it. This system has been intensified and expanded recently, subjecting around or over 3 million people to labour transfers, we can estimate that possibly close to 2 million of these are at risk of coercion, and therefor of coercive labour. So the total scope I estimate to be between two and two and a half million.
James Cockayne  2:19  
Those are very large numbers. How do you arrive at these numbers Dr. Zenz? Can you tell us a bit about your methods?
Adrian Zenz  2:25  
Yes, so of course, I'm also someone who has been estimating the scale of the extra legal internment campaign into reeducation camps, which initially was estimated to be at least several hundred thousand. More recent and especially most recent evidence, also from leaked internal documents, such as the Xinjiang Police Files, points to a scope of one to 2 million. Within these vocational training camps are one component. One document from one prefecture alone spoke of placing 100,000 of these vocational camp detainees into labour placements in 2018 and it’s a conservative estimate to estimate that at least several hundred thousand are at risk or subjected to forced labour through that system. With labour transfer it is a bit more complicated because labour transfers are not inherently coercive. People can earn more money by working in a factory than previously being farming land. And the main reason why they might resist that is not just economic it is also because it tears apart community - it displaces people. The method is to estimate firstly, how many ethnic minorities are part of that system because you also have r

In Episode 1, James is joined by Zumretay Arkin, Programme and Advocacy Manager for the World Uyghur Congress, and Jewher Ilham, rForced Labour Project Co-ordinator  at the Worker Rights Consortium, to discuss allegations of forced labour in Xinjiang. He asks Zumretay and Jewher about their personal connections to policies generating forced labour in Xinjiang, and what is being done to address them.
Transcript
In Episode 1, James is joined by Zumretay Arkin, Programme and Advocacy Manager for the World Uyghur Congress, and Jewher Ilham, Forced Labour Project Co-ordinator at the Worker Rights Consortium, to discuss allegations of forced labour in Xinjiang. He asks Zumretay and Jewher about their personal connections to policies generating forced labour in Xinjiang, and what is being done to address them.
Transcript
James Cockayne  00:01
Welcome to Xinjiang Sanctions, a podcast looking at the global response to forced labour in Xinjiang, China. I'm James Cockayne, a Professor of Global Politics and Anti-Slavery at the University of Nottingham. I've been working on modern slavery and forced labour issues for the last decade and researching Xinjiang forced labour for the last year. You can see the results of that research at www.xinjiangsanctions.info. In this short podcast series, I speak with global experts to understand why forced labour emerged in Xinjiang, and what governments and business are doing to try to address it. I'm very pleased to be joined on this episode by Zumretay Arkin, Programme and Advocacy Manager for the World Uyghur Congress, and Jewher Ilham, Forced Labour Project Co-ordinator at the Worker Rights Consortium. Welcome.
Zumretay Arkin  00:51
Thank you for having us.
Jewher Ilham  00:52
Thank you for having us.
James Cockayne  00:54
Jewher I might start with you. What do people mean when they refer to forced labour in Xinjiang?
Jewher Ilham  01:00
Oftentimes, when people think of forced labour, they think of people are forced to work in a factory and get paid very low wages, or work in horrible conditions, which applies to what many Uyghurs are going through in the Uyghur region. But what's so different about the forced labour in the Uyghur region is that it's state imposed, state sponsored forms of forced labour, which is widespread and the Chinese government has been using the excuse of for the name of poverty alleviation, and forcing Uyghurs who might have already had perfect jobs or a career that they have been working in for years, and forcing them to work in low income jobs. And there are also different kinds of forced labour that is happening, but within the region. First of all, there's the coerced labour of rural poor in the so called Poverty Alleviation programme. And the Chinese government has a standard of how many numbers each year they would like to subject people to be participating in such programmes and where people are sent to the so called centralised training centres -- even though it's called as training centres, but when you look at it from the outside, there's no difference from a prison because it has high fences, watchtowers, guarded with police or armed polices and barbed wires. And there are also other kinds of forced labour, which is the forced labour of detainees, it could be ex detainees, or current detainees. So detainees include people who are locked up in internment camps, re education camps, and also there's prison labour as well. So they're all different kinds of forced labour but they're all fall into the categories of forced labour practices. For the prison labour are people who have already received sentences for example, like several members of my family have been locked up, and then received from 10 years to life sentence. And oftentimes prison labour -- not only in the Uyghur region, but in China as a whole --  prison labour has always been known to be a very common practices to be used by the Chinese government. And oftentimes, it's in the Uygh