H&M, will you set an example and speak out against Uyghur forced labor?

Helena Helmersson, CEO of H&M

No fashion brand should use slavery in its supply chain. However, hundreds of brands still do, and it is estimated that one in five cotton garments is tainted by forced labor.

H&M is the largest company to come out against using Uyghur forced labor. In a statement, they confirmed that they do not work with any garment manufacturing factories located in XUAR, or source products from this region.

Whilst H&M has done the right thing by not using cotton tainted by forced labor, they should now use their power as an industry leader to speak out and set an example for other fashion brands to follow.

At least 84 percent of cotton produced in China is processed by Uyghur forced labor. After H&M came out against using Uyghur cotton, China punched back and the backlash was swift. Nearly 20 percent of all shopping in China is done online and Alibaba and JD (large e-commerce sites in China) dropped H&M. H&M stores vanished from online maps after they issued their Uyghur statement.

China is H&M’s fourth-largest market, and the brand now says it is now working on gaining back lost customers, but at what cost?

We believe that when companies such as H&M speak out against genocide and other mass atrocities, it makes it that much easier for other companies to do the same.

Join us and ask H&M to speak out against Uyghur forced labor.

Check out this link to "8 things you can do to help Uyghurs in a time of genocide" by the Uyghur Human Rights Project, a coalition partner of No Business With Genocide.

You can also connect with Helena Helmersson & H&M in the following ways:

Sponsored by

To: Helena Helmersson, CEO of H&M
From: [Your Name]

Dear Ms. Hemlersson,

Thank you for your statement earlier this year reaffirming your commitment to human rights around the globe and for ending your use of cotton from Xinjiang officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR).

That is a great first step. But we need more. As long as companies like H&M stay silent on what is happening to the Uyghurs in China, the harder it is to get other businesses to follow suit. Here, silence is not golden. It is deadly.

We know H&M has already faced backlash from the Chinese government over your stance here. We know that China is your fourth-largest market. We know that this will cost you. We think it is worth it.

Moreover, younger consumers care a lot about how companies act in other ways. As many as 83 percent of millennials prefer to buy from brands that share their values. Another 76 percent like it when CEOs speak out about important issues. A full 65 percent say they boycott brands whose values go against their own.

"The time is always right to do what is right," Martin Luther King, Jr.

Will you join us and put yourself firmly on the right side of history?