Ikea is once again the subject of suspicions of the use of forced labor. Already ten years ago, the global furniture giant acknowledged that some of its products from the 1970s and 1980s were made from the forced labor of political prisoners in East Germany. “Ikea has not and will never accept the use of political prisoners in production,” the general manager of the group’s German branch said in 2012. A decade later, Ikea is again associated with this scandalous practice, while its specifications still guarantee to their customers that they will not use it in the context of their production of goods.
The suspicions come from the investigation site Disclose, which ensures that ten Belarusian Ikea suppliers derive a more or less significant part of their production from forced labor in the local prisons where they are imprisoned, in particular, 1,000 opponents of the Alexander Lukashenko regime. .
Second supplier of wood Ikea
The French media collected dozens of testimonies and analyzed hundreds of accounting documents. This work led to the conclusion that almost half of Ikea’s main Belarusian suppliers had collaborated with five penal institutions in the country over the past decade. This revelation suggests that certain products, sold in the group’s French stores, could come from this workforce if we believe their “Made in Belarus” label.
In reality, this drift is the consequence of a Belarusian production that has been acquiring a growing weight in the activity of Ikea, becoming in just a quarter of a century its second supplier of wood after Poland. Three years ago, the state news agency estimated that the value of the Swedish orders would go from 130 million euros in 2018 to 300 million euros three years later.
acts of torture
In its investigation, Disclose names several Belarusian subcontractors and prisons involved, such as the textile company Mogotex, which is linked to four detention centers across the country, including one called IK-15. Questioned by the media, a former political prisoner, Tsikhan Kliukash, describes this place as “the territory of absolute horror, where Lukashenko’s executioners do what they want.” The young man, barely 20 years old, confirms degrading conditions of confinement in this penal colony with, among other things, acts of torture.
Six subcontractors, including Mogotex, are also linked to the IK-2 prison, reserved for minors and “notoriously known for the brutality of its staff,” according to Disclose. “To the point that the head of IK-2 was included in the list of people sanctioned by the European Union between 2006 and 2014 for the ‘inhuman treatment of political prisoners,'” specifies the research site that transmits a striking figure. revealed by the Lithuanian NGO Our House: the salary of IK-2 detainees would be about 500 times less than the national average salary.
Detention centers with websites
A political science researcher and specialist in protest movements in Belarus, Yauheni Kryzhanouski, points out that this practice is not really hidden within the borders of the country led by Alexander Lukashenko. “The production of the Belarusian penal colonies constitutes a highly developed economic sector, with commercial companies created in these colonies,” he recalls.
For example, the Rypp 5 prison website even mentions exports to Russia, Germany… and France. While some of its products are sold under Belarusian brands, others are purchased by the public company Ivatsevichdrev, which has certified its wood panels to the standards of one of its trading partners, Ikea.
An inconsistency with the position taken since the invasion of Ukraine
This indirect use of forced labor is all the more problematic as it is not in line with Ikea’s approach towards Russia, a country friendly to Belarus, after the invasion of Ukraine. And rightly so, the Swedish group had announced that it was suspending all commercial operations with the country of Vladimir Putin. “Even if there is nothing at this stage to show that the prisoners were directly involved in the manufacture of Ikea’s products, the integrity of its supply chain is seriously in question,” Disclose said.
Even before the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, several unions at the company had called on management to halt its activity in Belarus and wanted “independent investigations of its suppliers to determine their respect for human and labor rights.” Contacted by the research site, the group only assures that it has decided “not to develop new business” in the country and this, as of the summer of 2021. That is, Ikea has stopped supplying incriminated subcontractors in 2021.
Source: BFM TV
