An NGO from the USA is making serious accusations against Amazon: The US corporation is said to cooperate with suppliers who profit from sanctioned forced labor.
An NGO accuses Amazon of having in-house products manufactured by companies in China that are directly or indirectly linked to the forced labor of Uyghurs. The Tech Transparency Project says it found the companies on Amazon's own list of suppliers. The list was last updated in the summer of last year, but information about the five companies' connections had already been made public. The advocacy group, which aims to "hold major technology companies accountable," also criticized the fact that the list included a company for more than a year against which the U.S. government had imposed sanctions.
Still suppliers despite sanctions?
In its report, the Tech Transparency Project refers to media reports, such as those in the Washington Post. According to the report, some of the Amazon suppliers criticized had exploited hundreds or even thousands of forced laborers from the Chinese region of Xinjiang. Others are subsidiaries of companies that are accused of doing so. What the companies produce for Amazon is not clear from the report, which also does not list the U.S. company. However, the case of the textile manufacturer Esquel is mentioned, against which the US government imposed sanctions in July 2020 because of its involvement in forced labor. However, Amazon still listed its subsidiaries as suppliers in December 2021. read more