Uyghur Workers Are Moved to Factories Across China to Supply Global Brands

This barren land is what one Uyghur woman saw when she left her home in Xinjiang and began traveling thousands of miles to work in central China.

She and others who traveled with her arrived in Wuhan, where they would be making refrigerators for a Chinese electronics brand, Midea.

They were wearing matching hats with the name and logo of a state-run human resources company. That was a clue that this was no ordinary journey in search of work.

Our investigation found that the Chinese government has relocated Uyghurs as far as 2,600 miles from Xinjiang.

We documented their presence at 75 factories across 11 provinces in at least five major industries.

Videos on Chinese social media show they have been placed with suppliers for some of the world’s biggest car brands.

Factories making electronics.

As well as facilities processing poultry.

These companies supply brands such as Tesla, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, McDonald’s, KFC, Samsung, LG and Crocs.

In a video posted by a Uyghur worker looking out of a train window, a voice-over in the background says: “What separates us from our parents and our home … and lures us into slavery? Yes, money.”

Another worker, at a poultry processor, posted a clip with a voice-over in Chinese that said: “The place with a home has no work. The place with work has no home. ”

In another clip, the footage is accompanied by a Uyghur song with the lyrics: “In my eyes, tears of sorrow …”