April 2024
Background
Addressing the immediate dangers of climate change requires the rapid transition from fossil fuels and reducing greenhouse gas emissions; solar panels and electric vehicle sector have a crucial role in this urgent transition.
However, research shows that most of the global solar panel industry is at risk of being complicit with the forced labour of Uyghurs and other Turkic and Muslim- majority people. Chinese State-facilitated forced labour programmes are so deeply ingrained in the Uyghur region that experts recommend working under the ‘presumption of a high risk of forced labour in any workplace located within the region’.
The Chinese Government has established an unprecedented system of state-imposed forced labour in the Uyghur region on Uyghurs and other Turkic and Muslim peoples. This is in addition to human rights abuses on a massive scale, targeting Uyghur on the basis of their religion and ethnicity, including mass surveillance, cultural repression, arbitrary detention and torture and systemic sexual violence of up to two million people. The UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery has concluded that “instances [of Uyghur forced labour] may amount to enslavement as a crime against humanity”. An independent Uyghur Tribunal found the Chinese government guilty of committing torture, crimes against humanity and genocide.
The Solar Industry
- 95% of solar panels rely on one primary material – solar-grade polysilicon.
- China’s share in all the manufacturing stages of solar panels exceeds 80%.
- The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (Uyghur Region), northwest China, is the dominant global sourcing location and accounts for 35% of global polysilicon manufacturing – one of two most essential component in almost all world solar panels.
- All four of the Uyghur Region’s polysilicon manufacturers are implicated in Uyghur forced
labour either through direct participation in forced labour schemes, and/or through their
raw material sourcing. - The four largest solar panel suppliers in the world all source from at least one of these polysilicon manufacturers.
- Many companies that have created supply chains purportedly free of inputs from the Uyghur Region continue to source from suppliers or sub-suppliers that have exposure to the Uyghur Region for other product lines.
- The research also indicated that, as a result of global attention on the issue of Uyghur forced labour, information regarding solar industry sourcing is becoming less transparent over time, likely due to intentional concealment.
- China (96 %) was by far the largest partner for extra-EU imports of solar panels in 2022
The UK
The dominance of the Uyghur Region in the solar industries raises a clear conflict of interest and threatens the UK and its commitments to the transition away from fossil fuels:
- An estimated 98% of solar panels in the UK are made in China.
- This means that almost all panels used in the UK are tainted with Uyghur forced labour.
- As the US1 and EU2 have taken steps to tighten up their import regulations by passing laws to ban solar products made by Uyghur slave labour, the UK is at risk of becoming a ‘dumping ground’ for slave labour-produced solar panels.
- With the UK’s move towards clean, green energy solutions, it must do so without becoming complicity in forced labour and persecution.
Call To Action!
- Learn more about the Uyghur genocide.
- Join a Campaign – Corporate Justice Coalition campaigns for a new Business, Human Rights and Environment Act to hold economic actors to account if people or the environment are harmed by their activities.
- Push for change – remind the UK government and local authorities that as they transition to green energy, it should not be at the cost complicity with forced labour of Uyghurs. We
therefore call on the UK government and local authorities to:
- Introduce import controls that ban the import of products made with Uyghur forced
labour into the UK market. - Prevent the procurement of solar materials from the high-risk Uyghur region.
- Ensure that companies contracted do not use forced labour in their supply chains.
- Eliminate reliance on suppliers in the Uyghur region.
Download the full briefing here.
