The ILO has published its 2025 Committee of Experts report, highlighting forced labour involving Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in China. The report 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. The ILO has requested a response from China, while Chinese officials have denied the allegations.
- The International Labour Organization (ILO) has published its 2025 Report of the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations. The Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations (CEACR) is an independent body composed of legal experts charged with examining the application of ILO Conventions and Recommendations by ILO member States.
- The 2025 report contains new and updated information relating to forced labour of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in China. These 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. Extracts are as below.
- “According to the ITUC, 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, 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. The ITUC alleges that 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.”
Next steps
- The ILO has requested the Chinese government to provide detailed comments in reply to the observations from the ITUC.
Additional context
- Governments use CEACR reports to improve their labour laws and address concerns raised by the ILO. The findings often lead to policy changes or amendments to labour legislation to align with international standards. These reports are often referenced by other global bodies including OHCHR, EU and governments when assessing trade partners’ labour standards.
- Adrian Zenz, a senior fellow in China studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, stated that the new ILO report is “very up to date” and has corrected previous conceptual errors found in the 2022 version, which attributed all forced labour in Xinjiang solely to internment camps.
- We are updating our Global Risk Tool and have incorporated relevant information on China from ILO’s CEACR reports. Due Diligence Design’s Global Risk Tool provides downloadable detailed analysis of human rights risks in the Chinese Tier 1 and Tier 2 supply chains, with risks prioritised in a heat map. The tool is available on request.