China urges US to ‘reflect on its labor rights’

China urged the US on Monday to stop practicing double standards on labor issues, reflect “on its own serious violations of labor rights" and “take up responsibility accordingly,” local media reported.

“Every perpetrator of forced labor and child labor should be held accountable for their actions,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.

He was responding to a question on US remarks earlier this month at the 109th International Labor Conference in Geneva, Switzerland.

“Over the past five years, all 50 US states and Washington, D.C. have reported cases of forced labor and human trafficking, with as many as 100,000 people trafficked to the United States from abroad for forced labor every year,” Zhao said, according to Xinhua.

“According to statistics from some academic institutions in the United States, at least half a million people in the country have been subjected to modern slavery and forced labor,” he said.

“The US Department of Homeland Security admitted that forced labor is widespread in the United States.

“On child labor rights, the United States is the only country in the world that has not ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC),” Zhao added, according to the report.