What’s the link between how we spend our money and how religious minorities in China are treated? And how can we use our power as consumers to fight for freedom of religion or belief in China?

Eziza made a heartbreaking choice when she fled China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in 2018, after her husband was rounded up. She fled with two of her daughters who still had passports, but was forced to leave her seven-year-old, who had no passport, with neighbours. Her daughter was soon taken by the government to an orphanage. Eziza believes she will never see her daughter or her husband again, and sits in agony fingering the one tiny picture she still has of her little girl.

The heartbreak for Eziza is endless – and she is not alone. This is life for countless people from the Uyghur ethnic group, living in exile, severed from their roots and separated from their loved ones.

Since 2017, between one and three million Uyghurs – a predominantly Muslim community – have been placed in ‘re-education camps’. They are incarcerated for ‘crimes’ such as ‘unusual beards’, possessing a religious book, or meeting with others to pray.

President Xi Jinping has made it his mission to repress not only Islam but every religion or belief, with a severity and determination not seen since Mao. Mosques, churches and Buddhist temples have been torn down throughout China, leaders imprisoned and congregations forced to recite atheist slogans and propaganda as they worship.

From re-education camp, to slavery

Many of those released from ‘re- education’ camps are sent to factories which supply well known Western clothing brands. Whereas the region used to produce very little cotton, it now generates 85% of China’s output.

Despite global outrage at the abuses, leading clothing brands continue to source millions of tons of cotton and yarn from the Uyghur Region.

Gulzira Auelkhan, a Kazakh woman who was initially detained in an internment camp and then subjected to forced labour in a factory said: ‘The clothes factory was no different from the [internment] camp. There were police, cameras, you couldn’t go anywhere.’

Money talks. It can also call for justice.

How can you and I take on a global superpower and tackle such large- scale injustice? We put a lot of thought into how to respond, and decided the best approach would be to join with other organisations to bring economic, as well as political, pressure to bear.

CSW has become a part of a coalition of over 250 civil society organisations, Uyghur rights groups and labour unions from around the world calling on brands to ensure that they are not supporting or benefiting from forced labour of Uyghur and other peoples.

What are we asking brands to do?

We are urging brands to stop sourcing cotton from the Uyghur Region and to cut ties with companies implicated in forced labour.

The entire clothing industry is potentially tainted by forced Uyghur labour, and credible reports have implicated dozens of brands – Adidas, Nike, Marks & Spencer, Gap, H&M and IKEA, to name just a few. The onus is on each corporation to make a clear statement and ensure they’re not part of the problem.

Your voice as a consumer has influence. Will you use it for families like Eziza’s?

Act against injustice. Today.

• Write to brands asking them to sign the pledge, with our simple online tool at csw.org.uk/campaigns
• Contact a company you recently bought clothes from and ask them to prove they don’t source their cotton in Xinjiang – it could be anything from a letter to a tweet. Get ideas at csw.org.uk/notbuyingit