Workers from other industries who have escaped the labor-transfer programs are sometimes explicitly critical about their treatment. One Uyghur man was released from a reëducation camp only to be transferred to a garment factory. “We didn’t have a choice but to go there,” he told Amnesty International, according to its 2021 report. A woman from Xinjiang named Gulzira Auelkhan was forced to work in a glove factory. She was punished for crying or spending a couple of extra minutes in the restroom by being placed in the “tiger chair,” which kept her arms and legs pinned down—a form of torture. “I spent six to eight hours in the tiger chair the first time because I didn’t follow the rules,” she said. “The police claimed I had mental issues and wasn’t in the right mind-set.”
- No location available
-

Seafood supply chains are notoriously difficult to penetrate. International nonprofit watchdog groups and journalists have highly limited access in China. To detect forced labor, companies tend to rely on firms that conduct “social audits,” in which inspectors visit a factory to make sure that it complies with private labor standards. The problem, according to Scott Nova, the executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, is that the auditors themselves and the methods they are following are not set up to detect state-imposed forced labor. Audit preparation usually requires factories to fill out questionnaires disclosing the presence of migrant workers from other provinces or abroad, and the languages spoken on site, as well as to provide auditors with lists of workers, some of whom are selected for interviews. But factories trying to conceal the presence of workers from Xinjiang often simply fail to list them in so-called self-assessment questionnaires. Social audits are typically announced ahead of time, which allows managers to hide minority workers from Xinjiang during inspections. Even when workers are interviewed, they are often reluctant to be candid, for fear of retribution. Sarosh Kuruvilla, a professor of industrial relations at Cornell, analyzed more than forty thousand audits from around the world and found that almost half were unreliable. “The tool is completely broken,” he said. “It’s a tick-box exercise on the part of the auditor, but it’s also a tick-box exercise on the part of the brand.”
- No location available
- industrial oversight, social audits, auditing, seafood industry, forced labor,
- [note::What's the best alternative to social auditing?]

In some videos, Uyghur workers express their unhappiness in slightly less veiled terms. One worker posted a video showing himself gutting fish at Yantai Longwin Foods. “Do you think there is love in Shandong?” the voice-over asks. “There is only waking up at five-thirty every morning, non-stop work, and the never-ending sharpening of knives and gutting of fish.” (Yantai Longwin Foods did not respond to a request for comment.) Another video shows a fish-packing line, and includes a sound used commonly on Douyin:“How much do you get paid in a month?” one man asks.“Three thousand,” a second responds.“Then why are you still not happy?”“Because I have no choice.”
- No location available
-

In the U.S., experts say that, to address this situation, adjustments need to be made to the federal Seafood Import Monitoring Program. The program, designed to detect and combat illegal fishing, requires importers to keep detailed records about their products. But several key species, including squid and salmon, are not included in the monitoring, and the law doesn’t require companies to disclose information about workers or their conditions.
- No location available
-

Workers from other industries who have escaped the labor-transfer programs are sometimes explicitly critical about their treatment. One Uyghur man was released from a reëducation camp only to be transferred to a garment factory. “We didn’t have a choice but to go there,” he told Amnesty International, according to its 2021 report. A woman from Xinjiang named Gulzira Auelkhan was forced to work in a glove factory. She was punished for crying or spending a couple of extra minutes in the restroom by being placed in the “tiger chair,” which kept her arms and legs pinned down—a form of torture. “I spent six to eight hours in the tiger chair the first time because I didn’t follow the rules,” she said. “The police claimed I had mental issues and wasn’t in the right mind-set.”
- No location available
-

Seafood supply chains are notoriously difficult to penetrate. International nonprofit watchdog groups and journalists have highly limited access in China. To detect forced labor, companies tend to rely on firms that conduct “social audits,” in which inspectors visit a factory to make sure that it complies with private labor standards. The problem, according to Scott Nova, the executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, is that the auditors themselves and the methods they are following are not set up to detect state-imposed forced labor. Audit preparation usually requires factories to fill out questionnaires disclosing the presence of migrant workers from other provinces or abroad, and the languages spoken on site, as well as to provide auditors with lists of workers, some of whom are selected for interviews. But factories trying to conceal the presence of workers from Xinjiang often simply fail to list them in so-called self-assessment questionnaires. Social audits are typically announced ahead of time, which allows managers to hide minority workers from Xinjiang during inspections. Even when workers are interviewed, they are often reluctant to be candid, for fear of retribution. Sarosh Kuruvilla, a professor of industrial relations at Cornell, analyzed more than forty thousand audits from around the world and found that almost half were unreliable. “The tool is completely broken,” he said. “It’s a tick-box exercise on the part of the auditor, but it’s also a tick-box exercise on the part of the brand.”
- No location available
- industrial oversight, social audits, auditing, seafood industry, forced labor,
- [note::What's the best alternative to social auditing?]

In some videos, Uyghur workers express their unhappiness in slightly less veiled terms. One worker posted a video showing himself gutting fish at Yantai Longwin Foods. “Do you think there is love in Shandong?” the voice-over asks. “There is only waking up at five-thirty every morning, non-stop work, and the never-ending sharpening of knives and gutting of fish.” (Yantai Longwin Foods did not respond to a request for comment.) Another video shows a fish-packing line, and includes a sound used commonly on Douyin:“How much do you get paid in a month?” one man asks.“Three thousand,” a second responds.“Then why are you still not happy?”“Because I have no choice.”
- No location available
-

In the U.S., experts say that, to address this situation, adjustments need to be made to the federal Seafood Import Monitoring Program. The program, designed to detect and combat illegal fishing, requires importers to keep detailed records about their products. But several key species, including squid and salmon, are not included in the monitoring, and the law doesn’t require companies to disclose information about workers or their conditions.
- No location available
-