Buying clothes should never come at the cost of someone’s freedom. 

Along with Maurice Blackburn we’re representing the Australian Uyghur Tangritagh Women’s Association to take legal action compelling Kmart to come clean about whether its suppliers are connected to Uyghur forced labour. 

Kmart markets itself as an ethical business, but two of its suppliers have been linked to Xinjiang in China, where the mass internment, repression and forced labour of Uyghur people is rife. 

This case is the first of its kind in seeking to bring real accountability home to Australian retailers about the risk of Uyghur forced labour in their supply chains.  

This is an important step in making Kmart back up its words with actions when it comes to its ethical sourcing claims.

This case also highlights the weaknesses in Australia’s modern slavery laws. It shouldn’t be left to members of the public to compel companies to open their books through legal action where there are suspicions of links to modern slavery.  

Australian companies should be legally required to investigate and prevent forced labour in their supply chains and face hard consequences if they don’t. And our government should take steps to ban goods with forced labour from ending up on our shop shelves, like Canada, the US and EU have done. 

Kmart must come clean on whether its suppliers are linked to Uyghur forced labour.