New Delhi: The US has now banned five items from China’s Xinjiang province because of the use of ‘forced labour’ in the region. According to a report by ANI, the US has banned cotton, hair products, computer components, and some textiles from China’s Xinjiang province which are made “using forced labour”.

“By taking this action, DHS is combating illegal and inhumane forced labor, a type of modern slavery, used to make goods that the Chinese government then tries to import into the United States. When China attempts to import these goods into our supply chains, it also disadvantages American workers and businesses,” said Acting Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli in the report.

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The list of Withhold Release Orders (WRO) issued by the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) include products made with labour from the Lop County No. 4 Vocational Skills Education and Training Center, hair products made in the Lop County Hair Product Industrial Park; apparel produced by Yili Zhuowan Garment Manufacturing Co. and Baoding LYSZD Trade and Business Co.; cotton produced and processed by Xinjiang Junggar Cotton and Linen Co. in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The US has branded a 'vocational' center in the  Xinjiang region a 'concentration camp' for Uighur minorities according to an Agence France-Presse report.

"The Chinese government is engaged in systematic abuses against the Uighur people. Forced labor is an atrocious human rights abuse" and other minorities, said Mark Morgan, acting commissioner of the Customs and Border Protection agency in the report.

Cuccinelli also said that the move also protects American citizens from participating in human rights violations.

“President Trump and this Department have, and always will, put American workers and businesses first and protect American citizens from participating in these egregious human rights violations.”