The Nintendo was accused of using forced labour in its global supply chain. However, Nintendo retaliated.

Last year, the BBC published a report based on what the ASPI (the Australian strategic Policy Institute) researched. It claimed that thousands of Uyghurs (who are an ethnic and religious minority in China) were working under coercive conditions at numerous factories. This subject was brought up during a general meeting of shareholders this week, VGC reports.

A shareholder questioned the big N’s board members on the report, and Shuntaru Furukawa, Nintendo’s president, confirmed that some factories that were named in the ASPI report were indeed Nintendo’s supply chain, but the company does not know ongoing forced labour.

„We are aware that there was a report that Uyghurs may have been forced to work in the factories of our supply chain. However, as far as we have investigated the factory pointed out in the report, we could not find any record that it is our business partner, nor have we received any reports of forced labour in our supply chain.

To ensure that forced labour does not occur in our supply chain, we have established a CSR procurement policy and we ask our suppliers to comply with our activities based on the Nintendo CSR Procurement Guidelines. We conduct our business under the policy that if there is any actual or serious risk of forced labour, not only for Uyghurs, we will stop doing business with them,” Furukawa said. (CSR stands for corporate social responsibility.)

ASPI’s research was published in March 2020, and it identified 82 foreign and Chinese companies that may be directly or indirectly involved in said abusive labour programs, including Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. It also noted that „a small number of brands advised they have instructed their vendors to terminate their relationships with these suppliers in 2020.”

Forced labour is never good, especially for an ethnic and religious minority.

Source: Gamesindustry