Ian Bradford: The Labour Government continues to ignore human rights issues

In 2017, human Rights organisation Amnesty produced a report into cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It found that there were children as young as 7 working in dangerous conditions. 

Cobalt is a vital component of Lithium-Ion batteries used in electric vehicles. The DRC produces around 70% of the world’s cobalt. Miners working in the mines face long term health problems due to the inhalation of the dust from the compounds in the mine. This leads to lung disease.  Fatal accidents occur regularly due to mine collapse. 

There was the following headline in the Australian Daily mail from June 3^rd 2022:

“Child Miners aged 4 living a hell on Earth, so you can drive an electric car: Awful human cost in squalid Congo cobalt mine.”   

Combating modern slavery:  modern slavery Including forced labour is a major issue globally. 

New Zealand’s position:  New Zealand is committed to actively contributing to international efforts towards the elimination of modern slavery, including forced labour, child labour, people smuggling and trafficking.    

A “Plan of Action” was launched on the 16^th March 2021 by the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety, the Hon Michael Wood. 

The plan of action reaffirms New Zealand commitment to prevent and eliminate all forms of modern slavery and outlines 28 actions government agencies are taking through to 2025. Under the plan of action, policy work in currently underway to explore legislative and other options to address modern slavery, including forced labour in International supply chains. 

However, the Labour Government may have another problem, though like what we have seen so far, such as child labour, they will probably just ignore it. 

Researchers from Sheffield Hallam University Have published a report which concludes that almost the entire solar panel industry is implicated in the forced labour of Uyghurs and other Turkic and Muslim majority peoples. It seems to be well known now that the Chinese government is perpetrating mass human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other Turkic and Muslim majority peoples in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous region, known to locals as East Turkistan. Sheffield Hallam research provides clear evidence on the use of forced labour in the production of raw materials and other inputs for solar panels in the Uyghur region.      China now dominates world manufacture of solar panels. 

 Reports from Journalists, who have managed to get information out of China have said that China is dominating the global solar market because they are employing slave labour. An official Peoples Republic of China report from November2020 documents the placement of 2.6 million minoritised citizens in jobs in farms and factories within the Uyghur region and across the country in state-sponsored  “surplus labour” and “labour transfer” initiatives. The Chinese government claims these workers are engaged voluntarily. However, there is enough information to suggest that there is an environment of coercion with the constant threat of re-education and internment. It seems many workers are unable to walk away or refuse these jobs. If this is the case, then the programmes are tantamount to forcible transfer of populations and enslavement.  

 International solar energy companies – including from the UK, Germany, the US, Australia, Japan, and Kenya, have supply chains that are linked to this forced labour. 

There seems to be significant evidence – largely drawn from government and corporate sources that labour transfers are deployed in the Uyghur region within an environment of unprecedented coercion, undergirded by the constant threat of re-education and internment.  

Unfortunately there is more. Uyghur camp detainees allege systematic rape. According to the BBC, women in China’s re-education camps for Uyghurs have been systematically raped, sexually abused, and tortured. One such woman is Tursunay Ziawudun who spent nine months inside China’s vast and secretive system of internment camps in the Xinjiang region. She said that “sometime after midnight” they came to cells to select women  they wanted and took them down the corridor to a “black room”, where there were no surveillance cameras. Ziawudun said they took her on several nights. She eventually managed to get away and get to the USA. She said women were removed from their cells every night and raped by one or more masked men. Ziawudun herself said was tortured and gang raped on three occasions.     

Picture of Ziawudun

Now here’s the interesting bit. The NZ government does not know if the majority of solar panels being imported into NZ have been made through forced labour in China. 

In the light of the allegations made by Sheffield’s Hallam University and the BBC, and others, shouldn’t the NZ government have made every effort to substantiate the allegations and find out where the imported solar panels come from?  Leading Australian philanthropist Grace Forrest is warning that the push for green energy transition could push more people into slavery. Ms Forrest said: “You cannot harm people to save the planet.”

What does this mean for NZ businesses?

Businesses as well as governments, have a responsibility to recognise and respect human rights in their operations, and to seek to prevent or mitigate adverse human rights impacts linked to their operations, products or services by their business relationships. 

Businesses should work with their suppliers and consumers to ensure modern slavery, including forced labour, and child labour, are not part of their supply chains. Businesses with international supply chains are encouraged to assess the risk of modern slavery including forced labour, in their supply chains, and implement human rights due diligence as applicable. 

From where I’m standing, I cannot see any effort to check out supply chains, either by the NZ Government or businesses. Some serious delving needs to be done. The government is still vigorously promoting electric vehicles. Businesses are still selling them flat out.  Solar farms are still being built.  The uncaring Labour alliance is still religiously pursuing the green dream. Clearly, to pursue the fruitless green dream, human rights has to be ignored. 

Ian Bradford, a science graduate, is a former teacher, lawyer, farmer and keen sportsman, who is writing a book about the fraud of anthropogenic climate change.