Faced With Questions About Forced Labor in China, the I.O.C. Is Tight-Lipped
From www.nytimes.com
2022-01-04 11:13:47
Vivian Wang
Excerpt:
Informal efforts to arrange a conversation between the I.O.C. and the Coalition to End Forced Labor in the Uyghur Region — a group of more than 300 organizations established last year — began in May, according to Mr. Freeman. Finally, in the fall, the I.O.C. invited the coalition to send a formal request to meet, which it did, on Oct. 8.
Officials at first offered a written response instead. In an email on Oct. 29, Ms. Martowicz, the head of human rights, replied to Mr. Freeman to say that the I.O.C.’s sourcing policies banned forced labor. But she did not say how the I.O.C. enforced that ban, other than “from time to time” “engaging with our suppliers” — in other words, the companies themselves — “to request evidence of compliance.”
Third-party checks, she added, were something the I.O.C. “will be looking at” in “coming months.”
Critics say the I.O.C. has been slow to adopt a human rights framework, compared with corporations or even other global sports…
