The United States government is banning all imports from China made using forced labour from the Uyghur Autonomous Region, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on Monday.
Rights groups estimate that over one million people from Muslim minorities groups have been detained in recent years in camps in China's Xinjiang province. Beijing denies claims of genocide or the existence of forced labour camps and accused the US of peddling lies about the northwestern region.
"The DHS announced, as part of its implementation of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), that it will seek public input to inform the Department's continued efforts to prohibit goods from being imported into the United States that are produced with forced labour in ...China, including in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region," the DHS said in a Twitter message.
This message comes weeks after US President Joe Biden signed the "Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act" that bans importing of goods into the US made with forced labour in Xinjiang.
The UFLPA prohibits goods from being imported into the United States that are either produced in Xinjiang province or by certain entities identified in the forthcoming UFLPA enforcement strategy, unless the importer can prove by clear and convincing evidence that the goods were not produced with forced labour, the DHS noted.
"As part of our efforts to advance the Biden-Harris Administration's priority to eradicate forced labour from U.S. supply chains, we are taking an important first step today to implement the UFLPA," Secretary for Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said.
"Every day, the Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection ensures that goods made with forced labor are not able to enter the U.S. supply chain, and I am proud to work alongside the world's leading forced labor investigators in their mission to protect human rights and international labor standards."
( With inputs from ANI )
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