H&M Slammed on China’s Social Media Over Cotton Comment

  • Internet users call for Chinese consumers to boycott H&M
  • Western nations accuse China of using forced labor in Xinjiang
Photographer: Mikael Sjoberg/Bloomberg
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Chinese net users have called for a boycott of Hennes & Mauritz AB because it won’t use cotton from Xinjiang, thrusting the world’s second-largest clothing retailer into the Asian nation’s human rights controversy.

Users of China’s Twitter-like Weibo platform singled out the Swedish multinational after finding a statement on its website saying it has stopped sourcing cotton from the far western region. In the undated statement, H&M said it’s “deeply concerned by reports from civil society organizations and media that include accusations of forced labor and discrimination of ethnoreligious minorities.”