China, along with many other leading countries in the production of solar panels, is guilty of exploiting thousands of people of different ethnicities in its manufacturing plants, according to a 69-page report written by an organization in the United Kingdom.
While solar energy is one of the most popular alternative sources of renewable energy, thanks to its reduced impact on the environment, this report raises a major ethical concern about its use by exposing the human rights violations that take place in its manufacturing plants.
Solar panel manufacturing plants are powered by modern slavery
According to a report presented by the Helena Kenedy Centre for International Justice at Sheffield Hallam University in the United Kingdom , labor exploitation is confirmed in solar panel manufacturing plants in China, specifically in the Xinjiang region.
This is not the first report denouncing these exploitations, since previously the US NGO known as Horizon Advisory pointed out the violations of workers' rights perpetrated by these same companies in countries that are pioneers in the production of solar panels, including China.
The Xinjiang region has become one of the central hubs of global solar panel production in recent decades, and this report has highlighted that much of the labor process of these companies may depend on the exploitation of their employees , particularly the Uyghur population and other ethnic minorities in the region.
The clean energy sector has been offering deplorable working conditions for years.
This whole process originated in 2020 with a report published by the People's Republic of China, which documented the "placement" of 2,6 million people of Uyghur ethnicity into jobs in manufacturing centers in the region, through the "Labor Transfer" initiative.
While the Chinese government claims that all workers participate voluntarily in the effort, the reality revealed in the report shows that the labor transfer environment in the Uyghur region is rife with unprecedented coercion, under constant threats of re-education and internment . Because most of these workers have no option to refuse or leave the jobs, the program amounts to forced population transfer and, in effect, slavery.
These are the countries with the most solar panel factories in the world and their working conditions
With the huge increase in demand for solar panels for photovoltaic energy, factories around the world are at maximum production, leaving factories in the East as the world's leading producers.
First on the list is China , whose solar panel manufacturers control at least 75% of the photovoltaic panel production process. All of this comes at the cost of labor exploitation under slave-like conditions, without giving employees the option to resign or refuse their jobs.
China is one of the countries with the worst working conditions, with semi-slavery in many other sectors of its economy.
The next country in the solar panel production scale is India, with just over 3% of panel manufacturing , followed by the Asia-Pacific region, which also accounts for a significant portion of solar module manufacturing.
At the bottom of the scale are the regions of Europe and North America, which, despite representing more than a third of the world's demand for photovoltaic energy, both regions account for just under 3% of solar panel manufacturing at all stages of production.
