Global Rights Compliance, 01 Dec 2025
GENEVA – Leading legal experts and advocates at this week’s United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights in Geneva took actions to call for greater attention on state-imposed forced labour (SIFL) in the Uyghur Region – after this year’s Forum again failed to formally include the issue on its agenda.
Representatives from Global Rights Compliance (GRC), an international law foundation specialising in accountability for grave human rights abuses, the Uyghur Youth Initiative and members of the Coalition to End Forced Labour in the Uyghur Region jointly attended the forum with the goal of ensuring that Uyghur voices, often marginalised through systematic transnational repression, are brought into the policy discussion.
Throughout the week, these advocates attended sessions and held meetings – including with the UN’s Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery – to call for more concerted international attention to state-imposed forced labour.
Through interventions, the advocates underscored that in the Uyghur Region, credible human rights due diligence is currently impossible as workers cannot speak openly about forced labour and supply chain transparency is restricted by domestic law. They emphasised that, per recent research from GRC, dozens of companies are connected to critical minerals sourced from forced labour in the Uyghur region – an alarming level of complicity in systematic repression and human rights violations.
“Our message to the UNBHR is clear: Governments must adopt and enforce robust import bans so that forced-labour-made goods have no place in global markets,” said Lara Strangways, the head of business and human rights at Global Rights Compliance. “Without coordinated global action, we risk normalising a system of coercion in the Uyghur Region that should never have been allowed to take root.”
“The international community needs to recognise that Uyghur forced labour is a crisis – over 3 million people were forcibly transferred into labour programs in 2023 alone”, said Patricia Carrier, Business Engagement Lead for End Uyghur Forced Labour. “As our coalition stressed this week, immediate disengagement is the only responsible way that businesses can avoid contributing to these egregious abuses. UN leaders and forums need to listen to the voices of Uyghur advocates – this issue can’t be downplayed or avoided.”
The groups are calling for stronger enforcement and implementation of existing labor regulations in the US and EU, including the American Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act UFLPA) and European EU Forced Labour Regulation, as well as more coordinated global action to prohibit the import of forced labour-made goods. They are also calling on all companies to urgently trace their supply chains, address any points of exposure to Uyghur forced labour, and fully exit the Uyghur Region.
Representatives of Global Rights Compliance (GRC), End Uyghur Forced Labour, Stop Uyghur Genocide, and Uyghur Youth Initiative are available for media interviews. A video created by advocates attending the summit can be viewed here.
