(WatchDogReport.org) – The US Senate Finance Committee revealed on May 20 that it carried out an investigation where it found that some European automakers imported auto parts and vehicles to the United States using Chinese slave labor. The investigation was led by the committee chairman and Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, who publicly accused these automakers of using forced labor and then “swearing” they didn’t know anything about it.
In a statement, the Senate said that the investigation started in January and discovered that German giant Volkswagen sent a shipment of cars to the United States that included some parts that originally came from a Chinese supplier. The committee said that the supplier in question used slave labor from Uyghur communities and was even banned by the American government because of it.
The supplier was banned under the Labor Prevention Act, which became law back in 2021. Its main goal was to prevent the arrival of any product produced in China’s Xinjiang region to the American market. The region in question is known for being the main center not only of slave labor but also of the human rights abuses committed by the Chinese dictatorship.
Another automaker that the investigation found was importing vehicles that included parts made from slave labor was Germany’s juggernaut BMW. Many journalists in Europe said that the discovery of BMW’s activities wasn’t surprising as reporters have been saying for years that the German automaker was taking advantage of slave labor in the Asian nation. BMW consistently denied these claims for years, with some journalists saying they have even received threats they believe came from the automaker.
The Senate also said in its statement that another automaker that took advantage of slave labor was the United Kingdom’s Jaguar Land Rover. It added that while each of these automakers were notified of their ties with slave labor from China’s Xinjiang, their executives said they weren’t informed about the slave labor situation in the Chinese region.
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