🚨🍅‘Italian’ purees in UK supermarkets likely to contain tomatoes grown and picked in China using forced labour A BBC News investigation released tonight has uncovered that “Italian” tomato purées sold in UK supermarkets, including products sold by Tesco, Waitrose & Partners and Asda, “appear to contain tomatoes grown and picked in China using forced labour”. The investigation highlights that China grows about a third of the world’s tomatoes and most Chinese tomatoes come from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (Uyghur Region). ⚠️The Uyghur Region: A hub for forced labour and human rights abuses Uyghurs and other Turkic and Muslim-majority peoples are subject to state-imposed forced labour across industries, brutal repression and intrusive surveillance by the Chinese Government. Human rights and legal experts have determined abuses in the Region as crimes against humanity and/or genocide. 📢We urgently need stronger UK laws This is the latest exposé showing how UK consumers could be unwittingly buying everyday, high-street products made with forced labour. It shows that the UK Government must introduce robust laws to compel companies to act, and hold them to account if they do not. Currently, no law in the UK compels companies to conduct human rights due diligence on their supply chains and act when abuses are uncovered, or bans the import of goods made using forced labour. Legislation in the US, EU and elsewhere means that the UK is lagging behind and increasingly risks becoming a dumping ground for goods made using forced labour. Watch the documentary: https://lnkd.in/g2xepHVi Read our press release: https://lnkd.in/edEitW-3 #ForcedLabour #ModernSlavery #SupplyChains
