Petition to Customs and Border Protection Challenging the Importation of Goods Produced in the Xinjiang Region of China

August 2020

Corporate Accountability Lab joined the AFL-CIO, Freedom United, Global Labor Justice – International Labor Rights Forum, Human Trafficking Legal Center, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, Investor Alliance for Human Rights, Uyghur American Association, Uyghur Human Rights Project, and World Uyghur Congress to file a petition under Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930 with Customs and Border Protection (CBP), asking CBP to issue Withhold and Release Orders (WROs) against companies importing cotton and cotton-made goods from the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), China, “manufactured in any part with” forced and/or prison labor. 

In the past few years, the Chinese government began interning Uyghurs and other Muslim and Turkic minorities in so-called re-education camps, where they are reportedly forced to endure interrogation, indoctrination, and in many cases, forced labor. Forced labor is so prevalent in Xinjiang that experts have concluded that essentially all goods from Xinjiang are tainted by forced and prison labor. People are forced to work through internment in re-education camps, incarceration in prisons, and involuntary work placements as a part of “poverty alleviation” programs. 

For more information on this petition, read this press release and this blog post. To learn about WROs that CBP has issued against goods from Xinjiang, read this blog post on five WROs CBP issued on cotton, hair products, and electronics in September 2020; this blog post on a WRO on all goods produced by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), a Chinese paramilitary organization that runs much of the the XUAR; this blog post on the regional WRO on all cotton and tomato goods; and this blog post on the WRO on silica-based products produced in whole or in part in the XUAR.