London [UK] April 24 : Solar panels produced with slave labour in China will not be utilised by the UK's newly established state-owned energy company, as reported by Euro News.
GB Energy, initiated by Labour in July, aims to enhance renewable energy and reduce energy costs, and will be officially created once the Great British Energy Bill is approved by Parliament, according to Euro News.
Following weeks of discussion on the matter, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband is proposing an amendment to the legislation to ensure that GB Energy's supply chains are free from slavery. "Unfortunately, there's an issue across the entire renewable energy sector with state-enforced forced labour in China," said Luke de Pulford, executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), as reported by Euro News.
"They have labour transfer programs where the government forces, often ethnic minorities, to work against their will, and unfortunately, many of these workers are found within China's renewable sector," Euro News mentioned.
Approximately 45 per cent of the global polysilicon supply, a vital component in solar panels, is sourced from China's Xinjiang region. This production is driven by the systematic exploitation of the local Uyghur ethnic minority, according to research conducted by scholars at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK, as reported by Euro News.
Official documents from the Chinese government reveal the "placement" of 2.6 million "minoritised" individuals into jobs on farms and in factories in Xinjiang and other areas through state-sponsored "surplus labour" and "labour transfer" programs, as highlighted by Euro News.
According to HMRC data, the UK imports over 40 per cent of its solar photovoltaic technology from China. The European Union has previously taken measures to exclude renewable components produced with slave labour from its supply chains. In November, the European Council voted to prohibit products within the Union market that are manufactured using forced labour, as noted by Euro News.
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