Xinjiang: a company linked to the Party certifies absence of forced labour
A copy of the report (never officially released in full) was sent to an NGO confirming the unreliability of an audit conducted last December exonerating Volkswagen from charges of the exploiting Uyghurs. For China Brief , “Volkswagen used an inexperienced and little-known PRC law firm” and “failed to assess the compliance” with real conditions.
Milan (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Volkswagen has reportedly used a legal firm friendly to the Communist Party of China to conduct a controversial audit that seemingly exonerated its plant in Urumqi (Xinjiang) from the accusation of using ethnic Uyghurs as forced labour. The latter are Muslim minority at the centre of accusations of human rights violations by Beijing.
The review of the audit says that it is methodologically flawed, such as the use of videotaped interviews that can be controlled in remote streaming, whose confidentiality the People's Republic of China does not protect and therefore free expression is not possible.
The charge was made by Adrian Zenz, director of China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington in an article published in the China Brief, the Jamestown Foundation’s China newsletter.
The review is based on a report from last December that Volkswagen did not publish, but merely released its conclusions, according to which a company with experience in social audits conducted the probe verifying the application of the SA8000 social responsibility standards, and those of the International Labour Organisation.
A copy of the original study, conducted by Liangma Law, a consulting firm in Shenzhen, was delivered anonymously to the Washington headquarters of the NGO Campaign for Uyghurs.
Zenz’s analysis raises serious doubts about the reliability of the study.
Established in 2013, the Volkswagen plant in Xinjiang employed 197 employees at the end of 2023, 47 of them from "ethnic minorities".
In the past, specific complaints have been made about the use of teams of Uyghur workers in building a test track by the China Railway Engineering Corporation in the Turpan region.
Controlling supply chains was also crucial, in light of regulations approved by the European Parliament last April that bans the sale in the European Union of products resulting from forced labour.
According to China Brief, not only did the audit not comply with SA8000 standards, but the Liangma company, in addition to two Chinese auditors, availed itself of the services of a British army veteran who ran a pub in Suzhou, with little experience in corporate social responsibility in his resume.
The report fails to answer some essential questions such as: Do workers have the possibility to freely terminate the work relationship? Are their identity papers being withheld? Are workers forced to incur expenses or labour costs? Does the workplace or the entities that provide workers practise or support human trafficking?
“Volkswagen used an inexperienced and little-known PRC law firm and a highly obscure Western expert not experienced in social audits or SA8000 to perform a high-stakes audit of its much-criticized joint venture factory in Urumqi,” reads Zens’s article.
“Volkswagen then proceeded to conceal Liangma and Mr. Greenwood’s obscure identities, instead foregrounding Löning, a German entity, likely to make it more presentable to a German audience.
For Zens, “Liangma’s audit did not conform to the SA8000 standard that it claimed to assess. Shortcomings in the audit’s method and implementation mean that it was not able to adequately assess forced labor risks.” What is more, “Several claims made by Volkswagen about the audit are misleading or false”.
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