NYT Says Report Implies Use of Forced Labor in Chinese Solar Panel Inputs
The New York Times, relying on a Horizon Advisory report that used press accounts and government announcements of workers transported from Xinjiang, said that Chinese producers of polysilicon could be compromised by forced labor. The story, published Jan. 8, acknowledged…
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that the news articles and announcements suggest that the number of transferred workers is very small compared with the overall factory workforce. But U.S. law bans imports of any input with any amount of forced labor. The companies identified by consultancy Horizon Advisory supply more than a third of the world's polysilicon, which is used to make solar panels, according to the report. Nathan Picarsic, a founder of Horizon Advisory, is quoted as saying “what the firm had documented was likely 'just the tip of the iceberg.' If Americans are buying solar panels made with materials from these Chinese companies, he said, 'I would say you are complicit in perpetuating this Chinese industrial policy that suppresses and disenfranchises human beings.'”