The US Customs and Border protection agency announced on Wednesday
that the country will seize all imports of tomato and cotton products from
China’s Xinjiang region due to the use of forced labor, AFP reported. 

The
agency issued a “withhold release order” on those imports “based
on information that reasonably indicates the use of detainee or prison labor
and situations of forced labor.”

This
comes after human rights group said the government in Xinjiang was forcing over
one million ethnic Uighur Muslims and other minorities into prison camps, which
are being used to source labor for factories in the region.

Ken
Cuccinelli, acting deputy secretary of the Homeland Security Department, said the
United States “will not tolerate forced labor of any kind in US supply chains.”

“We
will continue to protect the American people and investigate credible
allegations of forced labor, we will prevent goods made by forced labor from
entering our country, and we demand the Chinese close their camps and stop
their human rights violations,” he said in a statement.