Humanity United Action calls on Congress to pass the bipartisan, bicameral Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, introduced earlier this year in the United States Senate (S. 3471) by Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and in the House of Representatives (H.R. 6210) by Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA). This legislation takes important steps to ensure the United States does not import goods made by forced labor from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China and hold accountable any bad actors engaged in the unconscionable human rights abuses being perpetuated against the Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang.

As numerous reports by government agencies, journalists, and civil society have detailed, the Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang have been brutally oppressed, subjected to forced labor, extrajudicial mass internment, torture, and other horrific human rights abuses. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act would rightly create a rebuttable presumption that, given the systematic use of forced labor in Xinjiang, all goods from that area are prohibited under Section 307 of the Tariff Act, which bans imports into the United States of goods made by forced labor. The bill also creates targeted sanctions to go after any foreign person knowingly responsible for the forced labor of the Uyghurs and other minorities, or who knowingly engages in or provides support to import into the United States goods from Xinjiang made by forced labor. Additionally, the bill requires a report to Congress to determine if the forced labor abuses constitute an atrocity as defined by the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act, a bill Humanity United Action also advocated to pass.

Humanity United Action advocates for policies to prevent human trafficking, forced labor, violent conflict, and atrocities. While the United States must continue addressing these abuses wherever they occur around the world, what we are witnessing in Xinjiang is shocking and reprehensible, and we cannot allow the those responsible for carrying out these abuses to continue acting with impunity. Humanity United Action strongly applauds Senator Rubio and Representative McGovern, along with the numerous bipartisan cosponsors in both chambers, for their leadership on this critical issue and calls on Congress to swiftly pass the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.