Was This Shirt Made With Forced Labor? Hugo Boss Quietly Cut Ties With The Supplier

Was This Shirt Made With Forced Labor? Hugo Boss Quietly Cut Ties With The Supplier

Hugo Boss distanced itself from a major clothing manufacturer shortly after a BuzzFeed News report on its links to cotton in Xinjiang, which the US has banned.

by by Alison Killing

BuzzFeed Contributor

, by Megha Rajagopalan

BuzzFeed News Reporter

Posted 37 minutes ago

• TwitterTweet
• FacebookShare
• LinkCopy

{ "id": 128679950 } BuzzFeed News

A logo-patch, slim-fit shirt in peached cotton sold by Hugo Boss

{ "id": 128679942 }

Hugo Boss has quietly removed subsidiaries of a Chinese textile giant from its supplier list days after BuzzFeed News raised questions about the Chinese company's deep ties to the Xinjiang region, where forced labor is rampant.

Last month BuzzFeed News reported that Hugo Boss and several other major clothing brands were continuing to ship clothes made by Esquel Group, a company that gins and spins cotton at facilities in Xinjiang, where the Chinese government is carrying out a campaign of mass imprisonment and forced labor targeting Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other Muslim minorities.

Forced labor is so widespread in the region and supply chain audits are so difficult to carry out that it is almost impossible to establish whether forced labor is being used there, experts say. The US placed trade restrictions on one of Esquel’s Xinjiang-based subsidiaries in July 2020, and in January 2021 banned all cotton from Xinjiang, both times citing concerns about forced labor.

But Hugo Boss and other apparel brands kept sourcing clothes from other Esquel companies based in Guangdong, southern China, and importing them to the United States to sell. Procurement records and company statements reviewed by BuzzFeed News show that Esquel’s Guangdong branch works together with its Xinjiang-based cotton spinning factories, and Esquel’s own public statements make clear that its Xinjiang cotton production is deeply intertwined with its worldwide clothing operation.

Since the ban against all cotton began, at least 17 Esquel shipments have arrived in the US for Hugo Boss, according to Panjiva shipping records.

Hugo Boss did not reply to a question about why it changed its supplier list, and Esquel did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The BuzzFeed News story was published on January 13. According to archived versions of the brand’s website on the Internet Archive, the Esquel companies were removed from the supplier list sometime between January 15 and 24.

Around this time, one more Esquel shipment did make it to the United States. Carrying cotton shirts and pants, the shipment arrived at the Port of Seattle on board a container ship called the OOCL OAKLAND, bound for Hugo Boss Canada, according to Panjiva shipping records. The haul was worth $50,100.​​

{ "data": {"label-char-limit": 31, "links": [{"article-url": "https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alison_killing/xinjiang-forced-labor-hugo-boss-esquel", "author": "Alison Killing", "id": "6137082", "published": "1642083099", "title": "Hugo Boss And Other Big Brands Vowed To Steer Clear Of Forced Labor In China \u2014 But These Shipping Records Raise Questions"}, {"article-url": "https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alison_killing/xinjiang-camps-china-factories-forced-labor", "author": "Alison Killing", "id": "5813152", "published": "1609178004", "title": "We Found The Factories Inside China\u2019s Mass Internment Camps"}, {"article-url": "https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/china-camps-prisons-xinjiang-muslims-size", "author": "Megha Rajagopalan", "id": "5857847", "published": "1626870665", "title": "China Can Lock Up A Million Muslims In Xinjiang At Once"}], "title": "More on this", "title-char-count": 12}, "formatName": "related_links", "renderKitUrl": "https://www.buzzfeed.com/static-assets/buzz-format-platform/related_links/js/render_kit.ab3b4361d5d5701cdd7b.js", "context": { "bfpId": "1534552", "buzzId": "6152572", "buzzTitle": "Was This Shirt Made With Forced Labor? Hugo Boss Quietly Cut Ties With The Supplier", "clientEventTracking": {"context_page_id": "6152572", "context_page_type": "buzz", "destination": "buzzfeed_news", "page_edition": "en-us", "source": "web_bf"}, "editorialStatus": "Editorial", "env": "prod", "firstAnswer": "", "subbuzzId": "128679989", "tags": ["--has-additional-byline"], "teaserMode": false } } More on this

• Hugo Boss And Other Big Brands Vowed To Steer Clear Of Forced Labor In China — But These Shipping Records Raise Questions Alison Killing · Jan. 13, 2022
• We Found The Factories Inside China’s Mass Internment Camps Alison Killing · Dec. 28, 2020
• China Can Lock Up A Million Muslims In Xinjiang At Once Megha Rajagopalan · July 21, 2021

• 

  Alison Killing is an architect and geospatial analyst. She can be reached at [email protected]

  Contact Alison Killing at [email protected].

  Got a confidential tip? Submit it here

• 

  Megha Rajagopalan is a tech reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in London.

  Contact Megha Rajagopalan at [email protected].