One in every five pairs of trainers in the world are made in a single port city in China.

And of the thousands of workers who enter Jinjiang’s densely packed shoe factories every day, many are Uyghurs, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz. Often they have been brought there under duress.

“If I had a choice, I would never choose this path in life,” reads the title of a video posted on Chinese social media by one worker shortly after moving to Jinjiang Baoshu Shoes and Plastic, a factory that makes shoes for Tommy Hilfiger, Guess and Skechers. Trade data shows Baoshu and its sister company export footwear to Skechers, and to Guess in Canada and Europe.

That ethnic minorities from Xinjiang have been coerced into China’s footwear factories has been known for more than five years. In 2020, investigations showed suppliers to Nike and Skechers were wrapped up in a labour transfer scheme that experts have called forced labour.

Since those and other revelations of Uyghur forced labour, multiple countries have introduced laws to compel companies to be more diligent about their supply chains and imports. Chief among these is the US Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), which prohibits the import of goods connected to the persecution of Xinjiang’s ethnic minorities.

But new reporting by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) suggests some buyers are skirting these laws designed to block the import of goods tainted by the use of forced labour. Our findings also connect another dozen footwear factories to the programme, including some directly owned by sportswear brands.

Warning signs

Taiwan’s Fulgent Sun Group, a footwear giant that services dozens of major clients, lies at the heart of scores of big brand supply chains. Its Sunshine Footwear factory in Fujian, the province where Jinjiang is located, has supplied brands including Nike, La Sportiva, Jack Wolfskin and Vans.

State media articles document the factory’s decade-long cooperation with the Chinese government’s programme transferring Uyghur and Kyrgyz workers from Xinjiang.

Dozens of these workers have posted to social media from the factory since 2021. Some clips show branded shoes on the production lines: in one video, Arzu* is seen working on La Sportiva trainers.

“Where there’s a home, there’s no work – where there’s a job, there’s no home,” says the voiceover that Arzu set to a clip of herself walking through the compound in Fujian one overcast day in spring 2023.

In August 2023, the US risk intelligence outfit Kharon issued warnings about the risk of forced labour at the Fujian plant. A month later, a group of US congresspeople cited Fulgent Sun in a letter to the departments of state and homeland security that urged them to “rigorously enforce” the UFLPA.

Fulgent Sun hired a lawyer from Squire Patton Boggs to deal with US authorities responsible for UFLPA enforcement, who told TBIJ that the company had “provided the US government evidence that the last employee from Xinjiang voluntarily departed Fulgent in December 2021”.

Evidence gathered by TBIJ, however, includes geotagged and dated imagery and videos showing dozens of Uyghurs working at Sunshine Footwear for years after this date.

US imports from the Fujian factory dropped off after 2023, according to trade data from multiple providers reviewed by TBIJ. The last recorded export to the US was in mid-December 2023, to Vans in California.

Yet despite direct imports from the group’s Chinese factory having apparently been halted, Fulgent Sun shoes continue to flow into the US.

A new route

Sunshine Footwear in Fujian wasn’t the group’s only factory named in the letter from US lawmakers: one of its Vietnamese factories was also highlighted.

Trade data revealed another pattern: more than 90% of exports from Sunshine Footwear in the past few years weren’t shoes, but shipments of raw materials and parts to the Vietnamese subsidiary.

TBIJ’s analysis of “harmonised system” codes – short numerical tags that classify every product crossing borders – suggests that these shipments could plausibly fuel the production of millions of pairs of shoes in Vietnam each year. Soles, linings, labels and industrial glue have all made the journey to Fulgent Sun’s Vietnamese operation. Since 2023, according to the company’s financial records, output in China has dwindled while production in Vietnam has ramped up by roughly the same degree.

The Vietnamese factory pumps out shoes for Vans, The North Face and Timberland – all owned by VF Corporation – as well as On Running, Jack Wolfskin and many others. VF in particular has clear policies on avoiding the use of cotton from Xinjiang and state-imposed labour anywhere in its supply chain. However, while North Korean labour is addressed in its standards, there is no specific mention of the Xinjiang transfer programme.

VF told TBIJ its direct relationship with the Fujian factory had ended in February 2024, but it stood by its purchases from Fulgent Sun in Vietnam, which continues to ship to the US. It also initially denied that Sunshine Footwear could even make shoe parts, before conceding the Fujian plant shipped parts directly to Vietnam. Although some of these shipments mention specific brands, including Vans, VF said the factory had only served as a “consolidator of raw materials” from other Chinese suppliers for export to Fulgent Sun in Vietnam.

The company added that it worked hard to ensure its shoes were “typically” made by nominated suppliers. It also claimed that it had records to prove the “shipped materials did not go into VF products” – but declined to share those records.

On Running stated that while it worked with Fulgent Sun in Vietnam, their shoes contained no parts or materials from Sunshine Footwear. The brand shared with TBIJ a sample list of more than 80 inputs for a specific shoe manufactured at the Vietnamese plant, along with detail on where each part came from.

La Sportiva declined to comment. Topgolf Callaway Brands, which owned Jack Wolfskin, did not respond. Shortly after TBIJ got in touch, Jack Wolfskin was sold to Anta – one of the Chinese sportswear companies directly implicated in the forced labour scheme.

Baoshu Shoes could not be reached for comment. Skechers referred TBIJ to various corporate social responsibility materials.

Tommy Hilfiger, Guess and Anta did not respond to requests for comment.

* Name has been changed