TurkistanTimes – Ottawa: Human rights organizations are pressing the Canadian government to invest more in its border agency to halt the influx of goods produced through the forced labor of Uyghurs, a persecuted Muslim minority in China.
The Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project (URAP) is calling for new investments in the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) in the upcoming federal budget. Jasmine Kainth, the organization's policy director, stated that increased funding would allow for better training for border agents on the complexity of global supply chains, enabling them to more effectively identify products linked to forced labor.
The report highlights that products from East Turkistan (so called Xinjiang region), such as red dates, are easily found on the shelves of Canadian supermarkets, including an Asian market in Montreal. Kainth argues that nearly all products originating from East Turkistan, particularly those involving cotton, tomatoes, and rare earth minerals, are the result of forced labor. She added that opaque supply chains, where a product might transit through three or four countries, make tracing its origins exceptionally difficult. "A product might come from Thailand, but the cotton and fiber used come from Xinjiang," she explained.
In response to the issue, the Bloc Québécois party has introduced a bill that proposes to "reverse the burden of proof." This legislation would require importers to demonstrate that their products were not manufactured under oppressive conditions, a model inspired by the United States' Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.
Serge Granger, a China specialist at the University of Sherbrooke, noted that while Canada has consistently raised human rights concerns regarding the Uyghurs, its actions have not always followed suit. "If the government wants to be coherent," he said, "products made with Uyghur labor would be banned from sale in Canada." He acknowledged this could place Ottawa in a delicate position, but pointed out that other countries have already taken such steps.
