A company that appeared on the U.S. government’s forced labor blacklist last week has disappeared from the websites of two prominent cotton sustainability programs that counted it as a member.
Following the addition of Anhui Xinya New Materials Co. to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act’s (UFLPA) Entity List on Friday, the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol said it’s cutting ties with the yarn manufacturer, effective immediately.
Anhui Xinya, previously known as Chaohu Youngor Color Spinning Technology Co. and Chaohu Xinya Color Spinning Technology Co., worked with an “established” government-sponsored work transfer program, Xinjiang Aid, to recruit and transfer Uyghurs from Xinjiang’s Pishan County to work at its facility in Anhui Province, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
The facility was among nearly 2,000 mills and manufacturers that work with the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol to process U.S.-grown cotton in a traceable and transparent manner. As of Monday, Anhui Xinya no longer appears on its membership roster.
“Members of the Trust Protocol are required to comply with the Trust Protocol code of conduct, which is incorporated in the member agreement,” a spokesperson for the voluntary standard told Sourcing Journal. “Among other things, the code of conduct requires adherence to certain U.S. laws, including those with respect to forced labor. Inclusion on the UFLPA Entity List is a violation of the code of conduct and, pursuant to the member agreement, the company has been notified that their membership in the Trust Protocol has been terminated.”
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Better Cotton, which was investigating Anhui Xinya’s participation in its sustainability scheme as of Friday, told Sourcing Journal on Monday that it has confirmed the supplier’s membership but it won’t be suspending the factory immediately. By Monday, however, the facility had been stricken from the organization’s website.
“In line with our member monitoring protocol, members that are found in authoritative listings have 30 days to engage with the relevant authorities to address their inclusion,” a spokesperson said. “During this time the member will not have access to the Better Cotton Platform. Companies still included in authoritative listings after that time will be suspended as a Better Cotton Member.”
While the Better Cotton Standard System includes state-imposed forced labor as a criterion in Better Cotton’s “enabling environment” assessment of new country startups and in the annually updated decent work risk assessment tool for all countries where Better Cotton is produced, the standard only applies to cotton fields.
“There is a code of conduct for members including non-field level members like Anhui,” the spokesperson said. “If they appear on authoritative listing they risk suspension or expulsion. That being said, we do not monitor social or environmental compliance at a factory level.”
Youngor Group, Anhui Xinya’s parent company, did not respond to a request for comment.
Anhui Xinya’s inclusion in the UFLPA Entity List is notable because it’s located in Anhui Province, not Xinjiang, which the legislation targets with the rebuttable presumption that all goods made in whole or in part in the region are the product of forced labor and therefore inadmissible to the United States.
“I think this is a very important signal because they are not just going after companies based in Xinjiang, but also those with relevant links in other provinces,” Adrian Zenz, a senior fellow in China studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, told Sourcing Journal.