Forced labour in Chinese cotton fields can now be linked to the supply chains of KFC and McDonald’s
“It’ll be fine. As long as we have two hands and a big bag. We'll get this cotton picked in no time. But in the evening, when we get home, only we ourselves know our suffering,” a Uyghur man’s voice says over a video of a dozen people picking cotton by hand in Xinjiang, China.
At one point the young woman filming the video turns the camera on herself: gloves, heavy coat, hat and a facemask. She posted the clip to Douyin – Chinese TikTok. A couple of months later, her reel shows, she moved almost 2,000 miles away to work in a factory in Hubei.
This story was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center
Cotton has long been the focus of international responses to human rights abuses in Xinjiang. About a fifth of the world’s cotton originates from the region. In 2020, US customs banned the import of Xinjiang cotton; later laws banned anything made with the raw material, such as clothes or shoes.
