SLAVE TRAIN XINJIANG - SALERNO
Why Italy Should Seize the Goods Carried by the Train and How We Are Challenging This...
SLAVE TRAIN XINJIANG - SALERNO
Why Italy Should Seize the Goods Carried by the Train and How We Are Challenging This...
Who We Are
ABOUT THE CASE
The Issue With The Train
The China-Europe Railway Express is a flagship project of the People’s Republic of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), linking Urumchi, the capital of the Uyghur homeland, with Salerno in Italy. At the end of April, the project’s first intermodal freight train departed for Salerno, fully loaded with agricultural products. It arrived at the end of May. The 82 containers of agricultural products carried by the train, including a number of containers of tomato paste, are highly likely tainted by Uyghur slave labour. Despite the Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, deciding last year to rescind the 2019 Memorandum of Understanding on the Belt and Road Initiative with China, Italy has now allowed the first-ever China-Europe BRI train carrying goods made by forced labour to enter the country.
Uyghur Human Rights Abuses & Forced Labour
For decades, the Chinese government has persecuted the Uyghur people, actions that the UN has recognised as possible crimes against humanity and that have been officially labelled as genocide by the U.S. State Department, the British Parliament, the Canadian House of Commons, the Dutch Parliament, the French National Assembly, and the Lithuanian Seimas, as well as by numerous academics and legal scholars. The Chinese government and prominent corporations have directly profited from Uyghur forced labour initiatives, which have been escalating and serving as a deliberate tool of this genocide. CCP’s state-facilitated forced labour programmes are so pervasive in the region that the Ethical Trading Initiative advises procurers to operate under the presumption of a high risk of forced labour in any workplace within the area. Over 17 global industries, from agriculture to toys, are implicated in state-sponsored Uyghur slave labour.
As per Dr Adrian Zenz’s 2024 report, “Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) currently operates the world’s largest system of state-imposed forced labour, with over two million Uyghurs and other ethnic group members at risk…In the context of Xinjiang’s expanding program of the transfer of rural and predominantly ethnic surplus labourers, [agricultural] goods are highly likely to involve the forced labour of Uyghurs or other ethnic groups, related to planting, harvesting, and any subsequent processing for added value (in the context of state-mandated industrialised agricultural policies).”
Our Legal Challenge
A prominent Italian NGO, StraLi, has filed both international and domestic submissions on behalf of the World Uyghur Congress and Lawyers for Uyghur Rights concerning a cargo load of slave-made and grown produce that has been brought from the Uyghur Region by train and boat to Italy. The submission has been made to the United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights, as well as a domestic criminal complaint filed. This legal challenge addresses both violations of fundamental principles of human dignity and international law instruments, as well as calling for the seizure of these recently imported goods under national law. The organisations have presented evidence from Dr Adrian Zenz, highlighting the prevalence of forced labour products from the Uyghur Region and that slavery taints both agricultural produce as well as other goods.
The application to the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights requests a communication to the Government of the Italian Republic to take action including seizing the goods and investigating the companies involved in the importation. The Italian domestic criminal complaint requests that the goods be seized as evidence and that a criminal investigation take place.
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