WASHINGTON – A shipment of women’s gloves at a California port has been traced to a factory that uses forced labor of people caught up in a brutal crackdown on ethnic minorities in China, U.S.
authorities said Thursday. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the shipment of 1,900 pairs of gloves will be held at the Port of Los Angeles/Long Beach unless the American company that was seeking to import the material can prove it wasn't made with forced labor.Overland, a retailer based in Fairfield, Iowa, was seeking to import the gloves and says it has provided proof to Customs that the goods were not made with forced labor and should be released.Customs said the gloves were made by the Yili Zhuowan Garment Manufacturing Company in Xinjiang, a.