Nike Canada Under Investigation for Allegations of Using Uyghur Forced Labour: Watchdog

Workers walk by the perimeter fence of what is officially known as a vocational skills education centre in Dabancheng in Xinjiang region, China, on Sept. 4, 2018. Thomas Peter/Reuters

A federal watchdog says it is launching investigations into two companies over allegations of benefitting from forced labour in China, including apparel maker Nike Canada.

The other company being investigated is Dynasty Gold, the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE) announced on July 11 in Ottawa.

The investigations stem from complaints filed by a coalition of human rights organizations last year, which allege that multiple industries are using forced labour from the Uyghur Turkic Muslim minority in China’s Xinjiang region.

Ombudsperson Sheri Meyerhoffer says that 11 other complaints are under assessment by her office and decisions on whether to launch investigations will be made in the coming weeks.

Companies have not been eager to cooperate with her office, said Meyerhoffer, with mediation between parties involved in the complaint not being an option at this time.

The Ombudsperson said she is “very concerned that this is how companies have chosen to respond.”

She says that Nike Canada told her office that it no longer maintains ties with the suppliers allegedly implicated and that it has provided information about its due diligence practices.

As for Dynasty Gold, it has told CORE that it does not have operational control over the Hatu mine in northwest Xinjiang and that the allegations surfaced after it left the region. The complaint against the company says that the mine is located close to “detention” and “re-education” centres.

Nike and Dynasty Gold did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Investigation

Meyerhoffer said staff will not be sent in person to the Xinjiang region to collect facts, given “human rights concerns in the region.” She said the audit will rely on professional investigators with knowledge of the region and languages, as well as open information.

CORE findings will not be binding and will only serve to inform the decisions of investors and government departments, said Meyerhoffer.

CORE was established by the Liberal government in 2019 and is tasked with reviewing complaints about human rights abuses by Canadian companies abroad.

Meyerhoffer also defended launching her first investigations four years after her office was established.

“We know the importance of showing results as soon as possible,” she said. “The underlying reality is that we were the first office of its kind in the world, we had no model to follow.”

She said time was necessary to build an accessible and secure complaint mechanism and a transparent and fair process.

The Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project is one of the organizations that filed complaints with CORE. Its executive director, Mehmet Tohti, has been a steady critic of the federal government’s inaction in stopping the flow of products made from forced labour.

Parliament passed Bill S-211 in May to require government institutions and private companies to produce annual reports on steps taken to avoid forced and child labour entering the supply chain. Tohti called the legislation the “pretence of pretending of doing something without doing nothing.”

Tohti welcomed the news of CORE taking up the complaints and launching investigations. He told The Epoch Times it’s a “first step” in the “right direction.”

Tohti also calls it a “stark warning” to Ottawa and Canadian corporations to “act immediately to stop making Canada a dumping ground for the products made by the use of Uyghur forced labour.”

The letter sent to CORE by the human rights organization last year says that it is “well-established at this point that atrocity crimes, including genocide, and human rights abuses are being committed by the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] against the Uyghurs.”

The House of Commons voted in 2021 to recognize the treatment of the Uyghurs as a genocide.