In 2024, GLAN and World Uyghur Congress won a landmark case at the Court of Appeal which established that goods linked to forced labour could be the proceeds of crime and therefore cannot be traded legally in the UK.
This World Cotton Day, and more than two years on from the ruling, UK authorities are still not doing enough to ensure that tainted goods, such as cotton products from the Uyghur region of China, which are widely linked to forced labour crimes, do not enter the country. Uyghur people in China are subjected to mass detention, and suffer torture and abuse, which several countries have described as crimes against humanity and genocide.
Write to your MP
Together with Stop Uyghur Genocide, we are calling on the government to take immediate steps to ensure businesses are held accountable to the law and the ruling is enforced. If you are in the UK, help us to ensure this happens by writing to your MP, asking them to raise the issue in Parliament.
The UK government and authorities know that goods made with forced labour are criminal property but are not taking action to investigate imports. Uyghur people, and all those forced into modern day slavery, need the UK to act now.
