Apple, Nike and other big brands linked to forced labour in China, according to ASPI | ABC News — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00Vicki shoe you are from a speak you'll
2. 0:03the lead author of this new paper
3. 0:05looking at what's happened to the
4. 0:06estimated 1 million we gas and other
5. 0:09ethnic minorities that have been held in
6. 0:12detention centers in the sanjiang
7. 0:14province what have you found
8. 0:16we found that um since 2018-2019 some of
9. 0:21them are being released and some in the
10. 0:23residents in Shenzhen are being rounded
11. 0:25up and they're sent out to other
12. 0:28provinces in China spread across the
13. 0:31country and they're working in factories
14. 0:33that are in the supply chains of a
15. 0:36number of you know very famous global
16. 0:39brands that we wear every day Nike
17. 0:42Adidas Apple by your reckoning something
18. 0:46like 80,000 or at least 80,000 people
19. 0:49who were in these detention centers have
20. 0:52been effectively used as forced labor in
21. 0:55we're talking about Nike BMW gap Huawei
22. 0:58Samsung Sony and Volkswagen what's the
23. 1:03purpose they're the 80,000 number first
24. 1:07of all is a very conservative estimate
25. 1:09it's basically based on chinese state
26. 1:12media reporting and the purpose to
27. 1:17transfer these ethnic minorities out is
28. 1:20basically to false play stripped them of
29. 1:24their very unique identity and culture
30. 1:27you know at these factories we goes
31. 1:30being an ethnic minority Muslim minority
32. 1:32yet
33. 1:33you know it's basically to strip the
34. 1:35wiggers this Turkic Muslim minority of
35. 1:37their very unique identity and culture
36. 1:40some companies are directly using weaker
37. 1:42labor to manufacture their product and
38. 1:46other companies you know in the lawn
39. 1:49complicated supply chain you know it
40. 1:51might be second tier or third tier there
41. 1:53is weaker labor and they might not know
42. 1:56well it's so organized it's actually
43. 1:58called you've discovered is Jing Chang
44. 1:59Aid where workers are being traded by
45. 2:03private brokers that sounds very much
46. 2:05like modern slavery well companies who
47. 2:09engage weaker workers under these
48. 2:11coercive they were transfers
49. 2:13could be in breach of modern slavery
50. 2:16laws in you know different countries
51. 2:18they have different versions of that and
52. 2:21I will say that you know under this
53. 2:24sweeping policy of so culture in John
54. 2:27eight the Chinese government is
55. 2:28encouraging provinces more developed
56. 2:31provinces to go in and develop
57. 2:33soon-jong this you know this region that
58. 2:36the government thinks is problematic
59. 2:38because it has all these minorities well
60. 2:40how do you actually know that this is
61. 2:42happening basically every piece of
62. 2:44information we were able to found for
63. 2:46this report was open source research so
64. 2:50they're all just out in the open on the
65. 2:53internet state media reports and
66. 2:56government documents they're all
67. 2:57downloadable in one instance Viki you
68. 3:01have an advertisement for the Tsing Tao
69. 3:03Desai decoration company which claims to
70. 3:07have government sponsored we Gers
71. 3:08workers from single Chang to supply for
72. 3:11other provinces I mean that's that was
73. 3:14publicly available what it all these ads
74. 3:16were publicly available and a lot of
75. 3:18them started to pop up around 2019 and
76. 3:22this specific ad said you know they can
77. 3:24offer hundreds of workers to all across
78. 3:27China and in the other ad they
79. 3:28advertised for workers aged 16 to 18 and
80. 3:32then they said you know companies can
81. 3:34place orders minimum a hundred people
82. 3:37and once you place an order the workers
83. 3:40can be delivered within seven to fifteen
84. 3:42days and if you think about that that
85. 3:44couldn't possibly be voluntary
86. 3:46so what conditions are they kept in we
87. 3:48can't determine that all 80,000 workers
88. 3:51are transferred against it well but in
89. 3:53the cases where we could find enough
90. 3:55information available we see workers
91. 3:59every 50 of them are watched by one
92. 4:01minder they're surveilled online and in
93. 4:04person they have to attend these
94. 4:06meandering studies after work and
95. 4:08political indoctrination sessions and
96. 4:09these factories have Butler fences with
97. 4:12the factories barbed wire fences that
98. 4:15now they're making Nike sneakers they're
99. 4:16making like this now just describe this
100. 4:18and it's not just barbed wire fences you
101. 4:21claim it so it's watchtowers police
102. 4:23guard boxes yes
103. 4:25so the Warren Factory take Wan Ching
104. 4:28Delta corn factory that is one of the
105. 4:31largest manufacturers of Nike sneakers
106. 4:33and they have Butler fences a police
107. 4:37guard box that was built in 2017 since
108. 4:40the newest crackdown started on the
109. 4:41weaker people are at this factory where
110. 4:43workers attend in night school where
111. 4:46they're offered to mentoring classes and
112. 4:47political indoctrination and they have
113. 4:49to sing the Chinese national anthem Viki
114. 4:51Xiu you'll report also reveals that a
115. 4:54company that's been contracted to build
116. 4:58Victoria's high capacity trains has a
117. 5:01connection to wiggle labour so we found
118. 5:04that in july 2019 we're workers were
119. 5:07moved dozens of them were moved from
120. 5:09Shenzhen to this cup Chinese company
121. 5:11called ktk group whose customer include
122. 5:13Chinese state-owned company CRR see who
123. 5:16is currently in a two billion dollar
124. 5:18contract building Melvin's high capacity
125. 5:21trains chinese state media says
126. 5:23participation in these labor transfer
127. 5:25programs is voluntary can you prove
128. 5:28otherwise yes we can and in one of our
129. 5:32case studies for this research we could
130. 5:35prove that one company how young this
131. 5:38Chinese company transferred sixty three
132. 5:41Weger workers from sundown to employ
133. 5:43province and state media reported that
134. 5:46they were transferred from a particular
135. 5:48school in jaja County and we were able
136. 5:51to determine by satellite imagery
137. 5:54analysis that this so-called school has
138. 5:57been functioning as a detention camp
139. 5:59since 2017 no your report says this is
140. 6:02the next phase in social re-engineering
141. 6:05what do you mean by that you know we've
142. 6:07been following this for a long time but
143. 6:09in the past year or so we haven't heard
144. 6:11many new cases of detention but we did
145. 6:13hear a lot of new cases of release so we
146. 6:16wondered where have these people go and
147. 6:18then we found that a lot of people have
148. 6:20been transferred out and spread out
149. 6:22across the country and if you think
150. 6:24about that that is the so-called free
151. 6:25education campaign engine jumping spread
152. 6:28out across the country and you know
153. 6:30having an implications for global
154. 6:32companies and consumers what of those
155. 6:34big brands what are you saying
156. 6:38them in this report and what are you
157. 6:39recommending we're recommending that
158. 6:42they do thorough audits under supply
159. 6:45chain and we believe some of them might
160. 6:48you know we were just getting emails
161. 6:49back from them and they seem like they
162. 6:51genuinely don't know who their
163. 6:53contractors are subcontracting to that's
164. 6:56possible so we do hope that they conduct
165. 6:58immediate audit and and in this process
166. 7:02they could make sure that the weaker
167. 7:04workers are no not put in further harm
168. 7:06and finally on the the Chinese
169. 7:08government itself what do you would you
170. 7:10recommend there we recommend them stick
171. 7:12to their constitution and release ethnic
172. 7:15minorities and if people rights to
173. 7:19choose where they want to work and where
174. 7:20they don't want to work because shake
175. 7:23thanks for joining us thank you so much
176. 7:33you