U.S. customs authorities have added three more textile producers to a burgeoning list of Chinese companies banned from trading with Americans due to their use of Uyghur slave labor.
Goods produced by Esquel Group, Guangdong Esquel Textile Co., Ltd., and Turpan Esquel Textile Co. can no longer be imported into the United States after they were added to the Entity List, said a statement issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Thursday.
The statement says Esquel Group is based in Hong Kong, while Guangdong Esquel Textile is based in nearby Guangdong province. Turpan Esquel Textile, meanwhile, is based in Xinjiang, it says, where most Uyghurs live under strict surveillance by Chinese authorities.
The blacklisting is due to the firms’ role in the “ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other religious and ethnic minority groups” in the Xinjiang region, it says, citing their use of Chinese government-run “poverty alleviation” programs there.
Beijing says the programs are voluntary and intended to train Uyghurs in vocational skills, but outside observers and the U.S. government say they are thinly veiled slave-labor operations. The United States in 2021 said China’s treatment of the mostly Muslim Uyghurs is a “genocide.”
China’s government has strenuously denied those claims and accused the United States of making up the claims to tarnish its reputation.
All three of the blacklisted firms are accused of sourcing cotton picked by Uyghur slaves in Xinjiang. Cotton is one of the most commonly cited goods tied to forced labor, with cut-price Chinese fast-fashion outlets like Temu and Shein accused of selling clothes tainted by slavery.
The latest listing brings the total companies on the Entity List to 78.
World Uyghur Congress executive chair Rushan Abbas told Radio Free Asia that she welcomed the blacklisting of the companies but believed many more companies tied to Uyghur slavery could still be added.
The group urges “continued efforts to ensure all supply chains are free from complicity in these atrocities, safeguarding American consumers from unknowingly supporting the Uyghur genocide,” Abbas said.
“All businesses must scrutinize their supply chains to ensure they do not, even indirectly, benefit from these atrocities,” she added.
