China: Foreign Trade

(asked on 16th December 2020) - View Source

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs,, what steps he is taking to raise concerns on cotton from Xinjiang and other unethically sourced products with the United Nations Human Rights Council.


Answered by
Nigel Adams Portrait
Nigel Adams
This question was answered on 11th January 2021

The UK has taken a leading international role in holding China to account for its human rights violations in Xinjiang, including in respect of credible evidence of forced labour. The UK led the first international joint statements on this issue at the UN, including at the UN Human Rights Council in June. Most recently, on 6 October, alongside Germany, we brought together a total of 39 countries to express grave concern at the situation in Xinjiang in a joint statement at the UN Third Committee. The statement expressed deep concern at the growing number of reports of forced labour in Xinjiang. In addition, at the UN Human Rights Council in September, we raised the issue of forced labour in our national statement which we devoted entirely to China - the first time we had focused on a single country since Salisbury in 2018.

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