Nearly half of a key component used for solar panels – polysilicon – comes from Uyghur forced labor operations under the control of the Chinese Communist Party.
The investigation by Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) found that roughly 45 percent of polysilicon is obtained from Xinjiang province, including the world’s four biggest panel manufacturers relying on the Uyghur-produced compound.
The 69-page report bases its evidence on numerous sources documented in more than 300 endnotes, including official Chinese government figures outlining the “placement” of 2,600,000 “minoritized” citizens in jobs in farms and factories in Xinjiang. Among the firms identified as using forced labor are Daqo New Energy, GCL-Poly Energy, TBEA, and Jinko Solar.
“The downstream companies that are potentially affected by forced labor span the globe,” concludes lead author Laura T. Murphy, Professor of Human Rights and Contemporary Slavery at SHU’s Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice.
