25 pairs of shoes per second. These numbers are generated by one of the biggest clothing brands in the world, Nike. We all wear these shoes, anxiously waiting for Nike to drop the newest pair. But how exactly is Nike making this many shoes? And who’s making them?

The answer is the forced Uyghur Labor in China. According to reports from the US Department of Labor that in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region over one million Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim minorities have been detained by The People’s Republic of China. The Uyghurs are a group that is mostly Muslim, Turkic-speaking ethnic group. Since 2017 those imprisoned have been forced into harsh working conditions.

In these harsh working environments, the Uyghurs are detained in camps and forced to work in factories. The detainment camps are very similar to prisons, the workers receive payment below minimum wage and are subject to military-like management. Workers can't see their families and are not allowed to leave the facilities. In addition to the workers captured and detained, these factory workers could be coerced into these camps. The targets of this coercion are usually people from poor rural areas. How could we ever support a company that does this? Well, their forty-six million dollars in sales last year shows a lot of us do.

Here is the thing, we all have no clue. Things like this are swept under the rug because companies don’t want us to know. Nike is not alone. They are joined by other big names such as Ambercrombie & Fitch, Adidas, Hollister, L.L. Bean, H & M, Shein, and Gap. These brands have also used forced labor and unethical practices, yet they all still remain in business.  These are only a few of the eighty-three companies on the list of brands found to be benefiting from Uyhgar's forced labor.

Whenever one of these articles pops up and exposes a brand we all shame them. Maybe for a month, their sales take a hit. But then most of us forget. Take Shein for example. In 2021 Shein was exposed for their harsh work environments and poor treatment of their workers. Still, they generated fifteen point seven billion dollars in sales. Improving by sixty percent on their sales in 2020. Their numbers improved after they were exposed.

How long will this go on? Well in 2021 there was the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act was signed into law with strong bipartisan support. Under the law, it prohibited goods produced from forced labor in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region to enter the United States. But there’s still a way around this. Raw materials from this region produced through forced labor are shipped all over the world just to go to different factories using forced labor. This law may now be in place, but there are certainly ways around it.

I’m guilty of it. Buying a new Nike sweatshirt and shopping at Shein. I bet if you looked in your closet without a doubt you would own something produced by forced labor from one of the eighty-three brands. Can we ever escape this epidemic? It starts with us. Don’t let this be another one of the articles you think about for a week then brush off. Keep it in the back of your mind and the next time you go shopping think about where your clothes are really coming from.