Legal action taken to see if Kmart used factories linked to labour camp

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Australian Uyghurs are taking legal action against retail giant Kmart in the federal court. They want access to documents that will reveal whether the retailer has sourced products from factories linked to forced labour camps in western China. Kmart has denied the claims.

Transcript

00:00The Australian Women's Uyghur Association has just filed in the federal court an application

00:10essentially seeking preliminary documents from Kmart under consumer law to show that

00:16it's not engaging in misleading or deceptive conduct, really in relation to its ethical

00:22sourcing claims.

00:23Now, the case and in the documents that have been filed, the key concern is in relation

00:30to two factories in the Xinjiang province in western China, which is a known area of

00:37concern for forced labour highlighted in United Nations reports.

00:41Now, this application to the federal court is requesting a series of documents, including

00:46non-compliance reports and also supply chain audits.

00:49We are simply asking for preliminary disclosure of Kmart of their supply chains that are linked,

01:00could be linked to Uyghur forced labour in the Xinjiang region or East Turkestan.

01:05So we would like to know if Kmart, what they say as they're sustainable and they're ethical,

01:13we'd like to know that they are who they say they are.

01:16We'd like evidence to prove that their products are slavery free, and especially Uyghur forced

01:22labour free.

01:23That was Ramila Chenechev from the Australian Uyghur Women's Association.

01:29And as we've heard, this is under consumer law.

01:32And leading the case is Morris Blackburn solicitor Jennifer Kennes.

01:38What we are really testing is that misleading and deceptive conduct part of it, in that we

01:45are saying that Kmart is making representations.

01:49That people in Australia are relying on those representations.

01:54And we want to test whether those representations are actually correct or whether they are, as we

02:02expect, misleading and deceptive, misleading the Australian public in relation to the ethical

02:10nature or not of their products.

02:13Kmart has issued a statement saying it was disappointed by this legal action that it is

02:19committed to human rights in its operations and its supply chains, and had invited the Uyghur

02:24group to meet.

02:25The company went on to say that it does publicly disclose its factory list, and it has a 15-year-long

02:33ethical sourcing program.

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