Correspondence
Email sent to the ministry's contact address.
The email asked: "I’m contacting you in light of our latest investigation which concerns the use of forced labor in China’s food processing industry.
Seafood processing companies in Shandong province have received persons from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China who were transferred under the government’s labor transfer program.
The United Nations, human rights organizations and academic experts agree that since 2018, the Chinese government has systematically subjected Xinjiang’s predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities to forced labor across the country via state-sanctioned employment programs which use coercive methods in worker enrollment, and obstruct freedom to leave employment.
The international customers of the products exported by these processors include companies in the U.S., where the importation of goods produced from state-imposed forced labor is prohibited. In addition to earlier legislation restricting goods made from forced labor, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, signed into law in December 2021, creates a presumption that goods produced by Uyghurs transferred out of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region via ‘labor-transfer’ programs are the product of forced labor and cannot be imported to the United States unless an importer can provide clear evidence the imports were produced without the use of forced labor.
Does the Chinese government have any comment to make about the use of Uyghur labor in China’s seafood processing industry?
We have also found evidence of North Koreans working in seafood processing factories in Liaoning province, after the December 2019 deadline for the repatriation of overseas North Korean workers required under UN Security Council Resolutions.
Has the Chinese government taken steps to check for or address the continuance of North Korean overseas workers in China?
Please respond to this email by close of business July 14, 2023."