By Uyghur Times Staff | October 8, 2024
A new report from C4ADS, titled Side Effects: The Human Rights Implications of Global Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Linkages to XUAR, uncovers disturbing connections between the global pharmaceutical industry and forced labor in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), referred to as East Turkistan. The report analyzes Chinese drug licensing data, revealing the extent to which pharmaceutical products manufactured in the region are linked to global trade and international finance.
The key findings highlight that 76 pharmaceutical products exported from China are exclusively produced in the Uyghur homeland, raising concerns about the use of forced labor in their production. Global pharmaceutical supply chains are deeply intertwined with manufacturers based in the region, such as Sinopharm and Xinjiang Deyuan Bioengineering, among others. These companies produce critical medical products, including drugs derived from human plasma and Traditional Chinese Medicine.
This exploitation is part of a broader, organized campaign by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which subjects Uyghur and Turkic peoples to forced labor, mass detention, and coercive land transfers in the Uyghur homeland. Despite international efforts, such as the U.S. Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), complex supply chains and data opacity continue to allow these human rights abuses to persist.
The report calls for increased scrutiny of pharmaceutical supply chains to address forced labor and other human rights violations.
“While China is the world’s largest active pharmaceutical ingredient producer and the second-largest pharmaceutical market in the world, the global footprint of XUAR pharmaceuticals has yet to be analyzed in depth. Not only are these products exposed to forced labor, but they also make the market riskier for governments and downstream consumers,” the Report says.