Tokyo, Japan
The
Japanese Ministry of Trade and Industry has called on the textile industry to
craft guidelines to root out human rights violations and to strengthen measures
to address environmental issues.
According
to Nikkei Asia Newspaper, the Japan Textile Federation will coordinate with the
human rights violations to draft the guidelines by next year. They are expected
to include provisions for assessing potential human rights violations relating
to fair work hours and wages, as well as the presence of child labour.
Companies would use the guidelines in monitoring suppliers.
The
United Nations and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
have outlined frameworks for companies to monitor supply chains for human
rights abuses.
Earlier,
in the month of May, Japanese sportswear firm Mizuno Corporation announced its
decision to stop using cotton sourced from China’s Xinjiang region, believed to
reflect concern amid allegations of human rights abuses by Beijing against the
Uyghur Muslims.
The
firm said that the output of products containing Xinjiang cotton will be
discontinued and will not be restocked once sold out.
Western
apparel companies have also taken stands against the use of Xinjiang cotton as
well.
Beijing,
on the other hand, has vehemently denied that it is engaged in human rights
abuses against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang while reports from journalists, NGOs and
former detainees have surfaced, highlighting the Chinese Communist Party’s
(CCP) brutal crackdown on the ethnic community.
H&M was forced to close 20 stores in China
following its statement on forced labour in Xinjiang that leads to uproar among
Chinese nationals and authorities. Meanwhile, Denmark, Estonia, Finland,
Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden have issued a joint statement
expressing grave concern at the human rights situation of Uyghurs and other
Turkic Muslim minorities in China’s Xinjiang province.
Source: Yahoo! news
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