By Rebecca Wright, Ivan Watson and Isaac Yee, CNN<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the past decade, Mikayla Lowe Davis has been braiding and styling hair for her customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe first thing people see a lot of times is our hair,\u201d she says. \u201cWe have to represent our crown and be confident with wearing it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 29-year-old stylist, who owns Mikki Styles Salon, is braiding in synthetic hair to the head of a customer in Arlington, Texas, a process which takes several hours and costs upwards of $115.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt helps them to become more empowered,\u201d Lowe Davis says of her customers. \u201cIt gives them confidence when they can see how beautiful they are, how beautiful their hair is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mikayla Lowe Davis says manufacturers need to give more information to sellers and consumers on the origin of the hair. Credit: Ashley Killough, CNN<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lowe Davis has a degree in biology, but the creative side of the hair industry drew her in. She sources products at beauty supply stores — a fixture of many African American communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBlack women spend so much money on hair care products,\u201d says Frankesha Watkins, an MBA-educated entrepreneur who owns the BPolished Beauty Supply store in Arlington. \u201cI learned that from this pandemic, no matter what’s going on, people want their hair to be nice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, the business of hair extensions is booming, according to Tiffany Gill, associate professor of history at Rutgers University and author of the book \u201cBeauty Shop Politics.\u201d The Black hair care market in the United States was estimated to be worth more than $2.5 billion in 2018 by research company Mintel<\/a>, and globally, the commodity of human hair is known as \u201cblack gold\u201d — due to the continued rise in its value. The majority of hair products come from Asia, mostly China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, some of the Chinese factories supplying thousands of kilograms of hair to the American market are under scrutiny by the U<\/a>nited<\/a> S<\/a>tates<\/a> government,<\/a> which is alleging the use of forced labor<\/a> in the country\u2019s far western region of Xinjiang — where rights groups say up to 2 million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities have been detained in internment camps<\/a> since 2016. Beijing has called the camps \u201cvocational training centers\u201d and says the expansion of factory jobs campaigners have linked to the camps is part of a \u201cpoverty alleviation\u201d program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Source: Chinese export data 2017-2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n In September, US Customs and Border Protection announced a Withhold Release Order (WRO) on any incoming shipments of hair from the Lop County Hair Product Industrial Park in southern Xinjiang. That followed two earlier WROs on companies registered within the same area, including the June seizure of 13 tons of human hair worth $800,000 from Lop County Meixin Hair Products<\/a> — which is now subject to a criminal investigation by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — and a previous order in May blocking imports from Hetian Haolin Hair Accessories<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The two companies did not respond to CNN\u2019s request for comment, but the Information Office of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region faxed a response to CNN regarding the earlier WROs, expressing \u201csevere condemnation\u201d about the \u201cbarbaric act\u201d against \u201cprivate enterprises\u201d that \u201cprovide opportunities for local ethnic minority people to achieve employment and help people get rid of poverty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Video footage shows boxes piled high with hair products seized in Newark, New Jersey. Credit: US Customs and Border Protection<\/p>\n\n\n\n Until earlier this year, Hetian Haolin had been a major supplier of synthetic hair products to a Texas-based company called I&I Hair. Its main product, EZBraid, is the top-selling hair braid at BPolished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen I found out about the forced labor, honestly I was shocked,\u201d Watkins says. \u201cI don’t want to participate or support anything that goes against what I personally believe in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I&I Hair stopped shipping from Hetian Haolin in early 2020, when the company learned about the allegations of forced labor. Custom officials say 13 tons of products labeled as human hair were seized. Credit: US Customs and Border Protection<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don’t think a lot of us even spent time looking into these issues of internment camps,\u201d William Choe, digital marketing manager for I&I Hair told CNN. \u201cWe were oblivious to it, (so) I believe that a lot of other people in the industry are as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I&I cancelled all orders from the factory, and later cut ties with their agency, KCA Global in South Korea, which I&I said managed their supply chain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI do think that they’ve done their due diligence to make things right,\u201d Watkins says, referring to I&I.<\/p>\n\n\n\n OS Hair, another hair company based in Duluth, Georgia, which makes a product called Spetra Braid, was also receiving large shipments of hair products from Hetian Haolin until April this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n OS Hair has also now changed its supplier, and said a South Korean company, Selim Fiber, arranged the deal with the Xinjiang factories. A company executive from Selim Fiber, who did not want to be named, said it knew nothing about forced labor allegations, and only shipped the raw materials to the factory under a contract with KCA Global — the same agency that had worked with I&I Hair.\u201cWe were initially shocked to find out about forced child labor and prison internment camps regarding our products.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n OS Hair, also known as Han Hyun-jung, CEO of KCA Global, told CNN it was shocking to hear of the forced labor allegations at Hetian Haolin. He said the company regrets what happened and no longer works with the manufacturer. Han said KCA Global had signed a contract with a factory in Xuchang, eastern China, which later moved some production to Xinjiang without them realizing. He added that the manufacturer also told KCA Global that \u201cthey were acting properly according to the poverty alleviation project.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Both I&I Hair and OS Hair denied news reports published in July saying their orders were part of the 13-ton seizure, saying they never ordered from Lop County Meixin Hair Products, and had already canceled their orders from Xinjiang months earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shipping records obtained by CNN show that two other US-based companies, Sky Trading in New Jersey, and Global Morado in Los Angeles, received shipments this year from Lop County Meixin. Neither company responded to CNN\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As companies attempt to clean up their supply chains, stylist Mikayla Lowe Davis says she hopes the seizures will create a wake-up call for the industry, and push manufacturers to be more transparent about the origin of hair products entering the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA lot of times it’s not made clear on the packaging on where exactly it came from,\u201d she says. \u201cI definitely don’t want it to come from slave labor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Associate Professor Tiffany Gill says she finds it particularly sad that the accusations of forced labor are associated with products used primarily by the African American community given \u201cthe long, painful history and legacy of forced labor that was a part of American chattel slavery.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Author Tiffany Gill calls it “particularly sad” that hair products made with alleged forced labor are being bought by African Americans, given the legacy of slavery in the US. Credit: via Skype<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the blame has to lie with the manufacturers, she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe have to be careful not to put the entire onus for ending these exploitative practices on consumers,\u201d she added. \u201cSo much of it is shrouded in secrecy, that we don’t know the means of production, that we don’t know who is producing what we wear on our hair.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Putting the burden of responsibility onto manufacturers and importers to prove the absence of forced labor in their supply chains is the goal of a new US bill — the \u2018Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act\u2019<\/a> — which passed with rare bipartisan support in the House of Representatives on September 22, by a margin of 406-3. Wang Wenbin, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said \u201cChina is strongly indignant and opposed\u201d to the bill which \u201cmaliciously smears the human rights situation in Xinjiang.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The US accusations of forced labor in Xinjiang are part of a wider pattern of alleged human rights violations<\/a> by the Chinese government in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite being the largest of China\u2019s regions and provinces, Xinjiang has a comparatively small population of just 22 million. It is home to a variety of minority groups,<\/a> of which the predominantly Muslim, Turkic-speaking Uyghurs are the largest. Uyghurs, alongside other Turkic groups including Kazakh and Kyrgyz people, are culturally and linguistically distinct from Han Chinese, the country’s dominant ethnic group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After a series of deadly attacks in recent years, authorities have taken an increasingly tough approach in combating what they claim is a violent separatist movement among minority groups in Xinjiang.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This view has been used to justify strict curbs on religious freedoms alongside sweeping surveillance measures, including the installation of security checkpoints<\/a> across the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The US says this policy has culminated in the creation of a network of shadowy mass internment camps, intended to subdue and assimilate Xinjiang\u2019s Muslim minorities through coercive political indoctrination, claims China vehemently denies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The US State Department estimates<\/a> that as many as 2 million people could have passed through the camps system since 2017.Related Article:<\/strong> China\u2019s Xinjiang camps: Leaked records expose how Uyghurs are judged and detained.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n CNN has documented<\/a> multiple testimonies of people who escaped from the camps, including women who say they were tortured, sexually assaulted, and forced to undergo sterilization procedures \u2013 all accusations which China has denied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leaked Chinese documents seen by CNN show that people can be sent to a camp for perceived infractions which range from wearing a headscarf or a long beard, holding a passport, or having too many children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Former Xinjiang resident Yerzhan Kurman had moved to Kazakhstan with his family in 2015. He returned to visit his mother in 2018, but was then swiftly taken into a \u201cpolitical educational school.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey came in the middle of the night and took me to the camp,\u201d says the 42-year-old. \u201cThey handcuffed us, put a bag over our head.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kurman, who is ethnically Kazakh, says he was placed in a cell with nine other men, with whom he shared a bucket as a toilet. They were monitored continuously by cameras, weren\u2019t allowed to talk to each other, and had to ask permission to use the bucket. If they disobeyed, they were punished by being made to stand upright all night, or denied food, he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They also got in trouble if they refused to sing the Chinese national anthem up to seven times a day, he says. If they failed Chinese language tests, their detention could be extended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gulzira Auelkhan, a 41-year-old ethnic Kazakh, says she was being forced to work in a factory in Xinjiang after spending 15 months in internment camps. Credit: Dinara Saliyeva for CNN<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another former Xinjiang resident, Gulzira Auelkhan, says she was also thrown in a camp when she returned to the region from Kazakhstan to visit her family in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCameras monitored us everywhere,\u201d says Auelkhan, who is also ethnically Kazakh. \u201cIf we cried they would handcuff us, if we moved they would also handcuff us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey would allow us to go to the toilet for two minutes only.\u201d Auelkhan says. \u201cIf anyone exceeded that time, they would hit us with electric sticks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Auelkhan says the authorities told her she \u201ccame from a terrorist country,\u201d and then they \u201ccut my hair. Took my blood samples.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Several other women have previously told CNN they had their hair forcibly removed during internment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey cut our hair off, made us bald,\u201d says Gulbakhar Jalilova, an ethnic Uyghur from Kazakhstan now living in Istanbul after escaping the camp system. \u201cEverything was gone. Nothing. I had long hair.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zumrat Dawut, an ethnic Uyghur who is now living in Washington, DC, after fleeing Xinjiang, says she endured a similar experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zumrat Dawut, a Uyghur exile now living in Washington DC, says her hair was cut off in an internment camp in Xinjiang. Credit: Zumrat Dawut<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI had long hair, all the way to my hips,\u201d Dawut says. \u201cOn the second day, they took me to a separate office, where they had a tray with a machine and scissors, and they cut my hair.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zumrat says \u201ceveryone\u2019s hair was cut short,\u201d which made the female inmates \u201csad and stressed.\u201d She doesn\u2019t know what happened to the hair, but says her \u201cheart aches\u201d if she sees hair products from China in American stores.\u201cI look at them and wonder if it is my hair or the hair of my sisters. I am wondering when people wear it, do they ever think about where it is coming from.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zumrat Dawut<\/p>\n\n\n\n The systematic nature of the hair removal has also been confirmed by Qelbinur Sidik, an ethnic Uzbek who is married to a Uyghur. Sidik used to live in Xinjiang and is now exiled in the Netherlands. She told CNN that she was forced to teach Chinese in one of the internment camps in 2017, and that everyone entering the camp had their hair shorn off. She was told her role was to teach \u201cilliterates\u201d and that the assignment at the camp was \u201chighly secret.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAfter about 10 days, all of them were completely shaven, hair and beards,\u201d Sidik says. \u201cWomen also were shaven.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n During a months-long investigation, CNN was unable to verify what happened to the hair allegedly taken from the women in the camps. Industry experts tell CNN that the high value of human hair means it is unlikely to be discarded, but point out that it would only make up a small part of the hair that would be needed for a stable supply chain. China also imports hair from India, Malaysia and several other countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ‘Xinjiang human hair’ is advertised on a Chinese hair company website. CNN purchased some of the hair samples, which are still available to buy online. Credit: Emeda Hair, Rebecca Wright\/CNN<\/p>\n\n\n\n CNN was able to purchase several hair samples advertised as \u201cXinjiang human hair,\u201d along with hair labeled as Chinese and Russian, from a Chinese company called Emeda Hair<\/a> — which has not responded to request for comment. DNA testing of hair samples is not possible without the root, and drug testing on the hair samples purchased proved inconclusive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Xinjiang authorities did not respond to request for comment on the accusations that hair is removed from detainees, or the allegations that the hair is being sold. But in September, China\u2019s state-run tabloid newspaper The Global Times<\/a> published a report quoting a hair product company manager as saying the \u201csensational accusation\u201d that hair forcibly taken from ethnic minority women was being used in their supply chain was a lie that was \u201ccrazy and ignorant of the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n When US Customs seized hair products worth an estimated $800,000 this summer, it highlighted that human hair is a valuable commodity that is traded across international borders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPeople in the industry do call it \u2018black gold,\u2019 and the reason why is because the value in the last 10 years has increased almost 12 fold,\u201d says Krishan Jhalani, CEO of US-based Indique Hair, which sells premium Remy human hair donated to temples in India. \u201cThe demand has gone through the roof.\u201d20102011201220132014201520162017201820192020High security internment campHetian Haolin HairAccessories Co.Lop County MeixinHair Product Co.Lop County No. 4 Vocational SkillsEducation and Training Center<\/p>\n\n\n\n Credit: Google Earth Pro, Planet LabsThis area in Lop County, in southern Xinjiang’s Hotan prefecture, was largely empty a decade ago. Rapid construction over the past few years has created an industrial park with several hair factories alongside suspected internment camps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n China is the biggest manufacturer of human hair wigs and extensions in the world<\/a>, and the main supplier of hair products to the US, with nearly $1 billion of exports entering the US in 2019, US Customs and Border Protection says. The scale of production, price point and online accessibility have all helped China to dominate the market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe US absolutely is one of the growth drivers in the industry,\u201d Jhalani added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And despite pressure from the US government regarding the use of alleged forced labor, the US is still Xinjiang’s fastest growing overall export market, with exports increasing 250% to $26.6 million from April 2019 to April 2020, a study<\/a> from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) shows. After chemical and mineral products, hair is the biggest export product from Xinjiang to the US in terms of order volume.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Data from US shipping data company Import Genius shows that shipments of hair products direct from Xinjiang to the US only appeared in 2017 and increased rapidly after that.\u201cThe US absolutely is one of the growth drivers in the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Krishan Jhalani, \u201cIt was fairly late in 2017 and then enter 2018, a lot more volume, when we’re talking hundreds of thousands of pounds of hair,\u201d Michael Kanko, CEO of Import Genius told CNN. The regular large exports of hair continued into 2019 and 2020, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The export records mostly originated from one location in Hotan, southern Xinjiang — the Lop County Hair Product Industrial Park, part of the Beijing Industrial Park. Kanko believes that pattern is due to China\u2019s expansion of the camps in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe source is clearly Uyghur labor camp internment, slaves basically,\u201d Kanko says. \u201cI’ve seen a lot of sketchy and sad things in trade data, but this is the new low for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A photo published by Xinjiang’s Department of Justice on a Chinese government WeChat account in April 2017 shows lines of male detainees in blue overalls inside the Lop County #4 Vocational Skills Education and Training Center. Credit: WeChat\/Xinjiang Department of Justice<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chinese local officials were offering hair industry executives tours to Xinjiang around 2015 or 2016, promising cheap labor and favorable tax policies, a person familiar with the matter who did not want to be named told CNN. For years, the hair industry in China has been squeezed by rising wage costs and increasing competition from other parts of Asia, experts say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/cdn.cnn.com\/cnn\/interactive\/2020\/10\/asia\/black-gold-hair-products-forced-labor-xinjiang\/images\/drop\/dallas-hair.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nHair products are being exported from Xinjiang around the world<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Optimum Solution Group<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u2018Everyone\u2019s hair was cut short\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\u2018Black gold\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
CEO of US-based Indique Hair<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/cdn.cnn.com\/cnn\/interactive\/2020\/10\/asia\/black-gold-hair-products-forced-labor-xinjiang\/images\/drop\/camp-people.jpg\")
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