New Allegations Made of Forced Labor at Chinese Solar Manufacturers

A report Friday about China's solar energy industry alleges that Beijing is using forced labor in factories that export products to the rest of the world.

The report from the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice at Sheffield Hallam University in England alleges that China forces ethnic Uyghurs and Kazakh citizens to work in factories that make solar panels and other products. Citing Chinese government statistics, researchers said that 2.6 million people have been placed in jobs throughout the Xinjiang region in what Beijing calls "surplus labor" initiatives. "The global demand for solar energy has encouraged Chinese companies to go to great lengths to make our climate responsibility as inexpensive as possible," the report states. "But it comes at great cost to the workers who labor at the origin of the supply chain."