This factsheet summarises Anti-Slavery International’s recommendations on how to effectively address state-imposed forced labour under responsible business standards. It is the result of years of collaboration with partners and practitioners that seek to address state-imposed forced labour, particularly with the Coalition to End Forced Labour in the Uyghur Region and the Cotton Campaign. 

2022 was supposed to have marked a turning point for Uzbek cotton, once synonymous with state-sanctioned slavery.

On April 3, 89 civil society organizations signed a joint statement calling on the IFC and the EBRD to ensure remedy and accountability, for the severe and systemic violations at Indorama Agro cotton project, Uzbekistan.

Today, the European Union approved a law forbidding the sale in the EU of products made with forced labor, a decisive step in combatting this abusive practice and holding corporations to account. The Forced Labor Regulation (FLR) will require authorities of all EU states to ban from the EU market any products or components which have been made, in part or whole, with forced labor. It will target perverse incentives enabling companies to benefit from forced labor in their supply chains.