International Labour Organization (ILO) flags ‘full extent of forced labour’ in China’s Xinjiang and Tibet
The ILO report 2025 states that forced labour extends beyond internment camps to include long-term imprisonment and large-scale labour transfers into industries such as solar panel production, agriculture, and textiles.
[…]
Information relating to forced labour of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in China […] were raised as observations predominantly by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and UN bodies such as the UN Human Rights Council (OHCHR). The report specifically highlights that forced labour is not confined to internment camps but includes long-term imprisonment and large-scale labour transfers. It has been rejected by a spokesperson at the Chinese Embassy in Washington.
Summary:
Two major systems of coercive work placement coexist in Xinjiang.
- Firstly, a system of arbitrary detention for Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities suspected of endangering social stability and national security (the “Vocational Skills Training and Education Centers” or VSTEC system) which since 2020 has been replaced with institutionalized long-term detention in regular prisons following a formal legal process, notably of prominent intellectuals and continued forced placement of “released” detainees in labour-intensive industries such as textiles and electronics.
- Secondly, a system of transferring “surplus” rural workers from low-income traditional livelihoods pursuits into industries such as the processing of raw materials for the production of solar panels, batteries and other vehicle parts; seasonal agricultural work; and seafood processing. In recent years, based on an intensified campaign of investigating and monitoring the poverty status of millions of rural households, the authorities had raised targets leading to increased cross-provincial labour transfers.
At the same time, Chinese local authorities had “actively guided” ethnic smallholder farmers to transfer their agricultural plots to large state-led cooperatives, thus “liberating” “surplus” rural workers for transfer into manufacturing or the service sector.
[…] In the last decade, similar policies have been pursued in the Tibet Autonomous Region (Tibet). These policies would apply coercive methods such as military-style vocational training methods and the involvement of political cadres to have Tibetan nomads and farmers swap their traditional livelihoods for jobs providing measurable cash income in industries such as road construction, mining or food-processing, thereby diluting “the negative influence of religion.” Placement incentives to local labour brokers and companies had facilitated a gradual increase in the labour transfer of rural workers to reach 630,000 workers in 2024.
[…]