The world sanctioned Xinjiang cotton. China turned it into chicken feed

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.