US Labor Department proposes rules to reclassify contractors as employees

"Today's list illustrates China's disturbing role - the world's second-largest economy - in sponsoring these exploitative practices," US Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia (in pic) said in a statement. "Forced labour and abusive child labour are dehumanizing, ruining lives and families," he added.

The list for these goods is part of a broader US government's effort to address forced labour in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, where more than one million Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities have been detained, the US Labor Department said.

"Estimates range from at least 100,000 to possibly hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in China who may be working in conditions of forced labour following detention in Chinese Communist Party re-education camps," the release further stated.

The Labor Department has in the past highlighted its growing concern over Uyghurs' treatment in Xinjiang. Last month, the US Department of Homeland Security had said that it will block the import of goods made in Xinjiang to combat alleged forced labour practices.

Human rights groups say Chinese authorities have detained more than a million people -- from mostly Muslim ethnic groups that include Uighurs, Kazakhs, and Kyrgyz -- in a vast network of detention centres as part of an assimilation campaign. Beijing has repeatedly denied the charges, saying the camps were built for vocational and Chinese language training.