Are your shoes made with forced labor?
Are your shoes being made with forced labor? That’s what we want to find out by asking apparel and footwear maker Skechers to adopt a human rights policy and figure out exactly where it’s sourcing materials. Across the world, an estimated 25 million people are victims of forced labor. The majority of them are exploited by companies for a profit rather than by private individuals. One of the largest sectors that relies on forced labor is the $3 trillion apparel and footwear industry. An estimated 60 million to 75 million people are employed in this global sector. A new player in the forced labor game is China, which has begun using detained Uighur Muslims for forced labor to make textiles. It’s gotten so bad that U.S. Customs and Border Protection began blocking shipments from there starting in October 2019. The U.S. government’s action—the first against a Chinese exporter in the context of the burgeoning forced labor crisis in China’s Xinjiang Province—comes against the backdrop of a catastrophic and ever-worsening human rights situation for the Uighur ethnic minority. That’s where Skechers comes in; Skechers has one of the worst track records in the industry when it comes to keeping tabs on