{"id":38140,"date":"2020-09-25T16:09:58","date_gmt":"2020-09-25T16:09:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jww.org\/?p=38140"},"modified":"2021-07-13T22:09:40","modified_gmt":"2021-07-13T22:09:40","slug":"uyghur-forced-labor-prevention-act-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/uyghur-forced-labor-prevention-act-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act passes House \u2013 now onto the Senate"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThis week, we mark another major advocacy win as the House of Representatives approved the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in a near-unanimous vote of 406-3.\u00a0 This legislation presumes that all goods produced, in whole or in part, in the Xinjiang region of China are the product of Uyghur forced labor and bans these goods from entry into any U.S. port.\u00a0 The bill also imposes sanctions on the architects of the forced labor system and calls for the State Department to make a determination of whether crimes against humanity and genocide are underway in East Turkestan \u2013 the Uyghurs\u2019 preferred name for the Xinjiang region of China.<\/span>\n\nJewish World Watch hails this critical development, but the work is not over. \u00a0 Many items in our own homes may be the product of the worst system of forced labor since World War II.\u00a0 If passed in the Senate and signed into law, this bill would stop Americans from unwittingly benefitting from Uyghur atrocities.\u00a0 Please click here<\/a> to help ensure this bill\u2019s passage in the Senate.<\/span>\n\n
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Why the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act matters<\/b><\/h3>\nUyghurs have been interned in a <\/span>vast constellation of camps<\/span><\/a> throughout the East Turkestan region of China.\u00a0 Forced labor is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the litany of egregious violations they are experiencing at the hands of the Chinese government, including extrajudicial killings, family separation, forced political indoctrination, organ harvesting, rape, torture, prevention of births, and the destruction of Uyghur culture.\u00a0 In July, U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized a <\/span>13-ton shipment <\/span><\/a>of hair weaves, suspected to be taken from and forcibly produced by Uyghur women in East Turkestan.\u00a0 The taking of human hair resonates deeply with the Jewish experience, as does <\/span>leaked footage<\/span><\/a> of Uyghurs, blindfolded and shackled, being led from a train.<\/span>\n\nThe scope of the Uyghur forced labor problem is staggering.\u00a0 <\/span>84% of China\u2019s cotton production comes from the Uyghur region, which means 20% of the world\u2019s cotton is sourced from there<\/b>.\u00a0 <\/span>As many as 1 in 5 cotton garments in the world market are likely tainted by Uyghur forced labor. <\/b>\u00a0But it doesn\u2019t stop at cotton.\u00a0 Finished apparel, hair products, computer parts, and other common goods are produced by Uyghur forced labor as well.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\n\nWhat\u2019s troubling about the Uyghur forced labor situation is that many household names are potentially complicit in fueling the Uyghur labor machine, whether they know it or not.\u00a0 By blocking goods produced in East Turkestan from entering the U.S., the bill protects us as consumers from unwittingly benefitting the perpetrators of potential genocide.\u00a0 It also protects U.S. corporations from fueling this monstrous machinery.\u00a0 The legislation makes the critical finding that ordinary due diligence to ensure clean supply chains is unreliable in the Uyghur region because forced labor has been so seamlessly integrated into the regional economy and surveillance and coercion are so systemic.\u00a0 Since the cleanness of the goods is exceedingly difficult to establish, the legislation assumes <\/span>everything<\/span> from the region is tainted by forced labor and blocks it from entering our shores, unless U.S. Customs and Border Protection can demonstrate they are clean with \u201cclear and convincing evidence.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\n\nThe United States has assumed a real leadership role in countering China\u2019s policies and holding it accountable for the atrocious abuses it is perpetrating against its own citizens.\u00a0 This June, the<\/span> President signed <\/span><\/a>the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act into law.\u00a0 Jewish World Watch, with your support, was instrumental in bringing about this major advocacy victory.\u00a0 In July, the Department of Commerce\u2019s Bureau of Industry and Security added <\/span>eleven Chinese companies<\/span><\/a> to an entities list, implicating them in gross human rights violations, including forced labor and high-tech surveillance of Uyghurs.\u00a0 The Trump Administration<\/span> imposed sanctions<\/span><\/a> on these companies and added even <\/span>more sanctions<\/span><\/a> against a powerful government entity and two Chinese officials in August.<\/span>\n

What can you do<\/b><\/h3>\nWe need to rally together now to make sure the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act passes the Senate.\u00a0 There is tremendous bipartisan and bicameral support for addressing the Uyghur crisis, especially amid the challenges and unknowns of COVID-19.<\/span>\n\nWhile Jewish World Watch is a global organization, our strongest base is in California, where we are located.\u00a0 Senators Diane Feinstein and Kamala Harris have yet to co-sponsor this legislation, but they are friends of JWW and of the Uyghurs.\u00a0 JWW and our Uyghur diaspora allies visited both senators\u2019 offices last year to ask for their support of the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act \u2013 which both senators endorsed, crediting JWW for influencing their decision to co-sponsor.\u00a0 Since our meetings, both Senators <\/span>Harris<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Feinstein<\/span><\/a> have gone on to champion the Uyghur cause and decry China\u2019s abuses.\u00a0 The Uyghur Forced Labor Act, a relatively new piece of legislation, may simply not be on their radar.\u00a0 It\u2019s our job to alert them to this important bill and get them to sign on NOW.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\n\nPlease take a moment to send this letter<\/a> to your senators and ask them to co-sponsor this bill that directly impacts us all and could make a huge difference in dismantling China\u2019s systemic abuses.<\/span><\/em>\n

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This week, we mark another major advocacy win as the House of Representatives approved the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in a near-unanimous vote of 406-3.\u00a0 This legislation presumes that all goods produced, in whole or in part, in the Xinjiang region of China are the product of Uyghur forced labor and bans these goods…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":38144,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,147],"tags":[177,155,244,159,140,250,143,160,251,164,153,187],"class_list":["post-38140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive","category-china","tag-jww","tag-china","tag-covid-19","tag-forced-labor","tag-genocide","tag-house-of-representatives","tag-jewish","tag-jewish-world-watch","tag-senate","tag-uighurs","tag-uyghurs","tag-xinjiang"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38140"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40433,"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38140\/revisions\/40433"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}