Popular clothing retailers Target and Cotton On are reviewing their supply chains after an investigation into forced labour in China.
The current allegations that sparked investigations started from a video call from the older sister of 34-year-old Gulnur Idreis. While she was living in Melbourne, her sister was in Xinjiang, China, allegedly forced to work in a textile factory.
Her sister claims that those working in these factories had been shackled, handcuffed and punished if they complained.
ABC Australia reports that H&M, Cotton On, IKEA, Target and Jeanswet have all sourced cotton from Xinjiang.
Since 2017, the Communist party in China has been carrying out a mass campaign against Muslim Uighur citizens in the Xinjiang Province by rounding up, detaining and forcibly indoctrinating them and other Muslim minority ethnic groups in the far-western region, according to ABC Australia.
They're being held in so-called "re-education camps", where human rights groups allege detainees are subjected to political indoctrination, ill treatment and sometimes torture.
A UN committee believes over one million Uighurs are in this "mass internment camp".
German academic Adrian Zenz was part of a team that helped uncover the network of camps in Xinjiang when they first emerged in 2017.
He told ABC Australia he has shocking new evidence that these stories of forced labour are not isolated cases.
"Basically, there's a huge scheme going on, a huge plan in Xinjiang to put all kinds of people into different forms of involuntary labour," he said.
Representatives for Nike and PVH Corp — the company behind Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger — said they are looking into the issue of forced labour in Xinjiang.
Nike said in a statement it was reviewing whether materials were sourced for their supplies from this region.
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