New Zealand and Australian bedding retailers are reviewing their relationship with a Dunedin-based importer Silk Sensation that had earlier advertised itself as selling sheets made of cotton sourced from China’s Xinjiang province. However, Ian Thomson, Director, Silk Sensation has denied the sheets are made by slave labor. He said, the cotton has been sourced from a completely different aprt of the province and not from where human rights abuses occurred.

Although only Harvey Norman stocked its cotton sheets, the company’s other products are stocked by retailers like Smith & Caugheys, Beds R Us, Sleep Gallery, Queen B, Innature, Chambers, Bedpost, NZ Nature, Whitwells Furniture, J Ballantyne & Co. and H & J Smith.s

A report published recently by the US Centre for Global Policy found coercive labor practices affect the vast majority of Xinjiang’s cotton production. Moreover, it said southern Xinjiang, where most Uighurs live, produces over three quarters of the region’s cotton. The report found at least 570,000 people in three Uighur regions were forced into cotton-picking schemes in 2018.

Many international clothing brands plan to stop sourcing cotton and garments from Xinjiang.