Despite the US Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, companies like Vans and The North Face may still source footwear tied to coerced Uyghur workers, rerouted through Vietnam to reach global markets.
A new investigation has raised fresh concerns that major US and European footwear brands, including Vans, The North Face, Timberland, Skechers, Guess, and Tommy Hilfiger, may be indirectly linked to Uyghur forced labour in China despite international laws designed to prevent it.
According to findings by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) in partnership with the Pulitzer Center, Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and Kyrgyz workers have been transferred under coercion from East Turkistan to shoe factories in China’s Fujian province. The region’s city of Jinjiang alone produces one in every five pairs of trainers worldwide.
One facility, Baoshu Shoes, has supplied Skechers, Guess, and Tommy Hilfiger. Another, Sunshine Footwear – operated by Taiwan’s Fulgent Sun Group – has produced for Nike, Vans, La Sportiva, and Jack Wolfskin. Chinese state media has openly documented Sunshine’s cooperation with labour transfer schemes for over a decade.
Despite evidence that Uyghur workers remained in the factory well after 2021, Fulgent Sun told US authorities that all Xinjiang-origin workers had “voluntarily departed” by the end of that year. Trade data, however, and geotagged social media videos reviewed by TBIJ show Uyghurs still working there as late as 2023.
The US Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), enacted in 2021, bans imports linked to forced labour from East Turkistan. Yet, investigators found that while direct exports from Fulgent Sun’s Fujian factory to the US declined in late 2023, shipments of raw materials and shoe parts were redirected to the company’s Vietnamese plants. From there, finished footwear continues to reach the US market.
The Vietnamese facilities supply VF Corporation brands Vans, The North Face, and Timberland, as well as On Running and Jack Wolfskin. VF Corporation acknowledged ending direct business with the Fujian site in 2024 but defended its continued reliance on Fulgent Sun in Vietnam. It initially denied that the Chinese plant shipped shoe parts, later conceding that it did so but insisted these parts were not used in its products.
Other brands offered little to no transparency. La Sportiva declined to comment, while Guess, Tommy Hilfiger, and Anta did not respond. Skechers referred reporters to its corporate social responsibility statements.
Human rights advocates say the findings reveal how global brands may exploit complex supply chain structures to evade accountability under the UFLPA, while Uyghur and other Turkic workers remain subjected to coercive labour transfers.
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