The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) is proud to release a joint investigation by the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice at Sheffield Hallam University and NomoGaia revealing how the World Bank’s private lending arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), has several significant investments in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, where indigenous peoples have been subjected to what international legislators, legal scholars, and advocates have determined to be a genocide.

Significant evidence suggests that several of IFC’s clients are active participants in the implementation of China’s campaign of repression against the Uyghurs, including through forced labor, forced displacement, cultural erasure, and environmental destruction. IFC’s failure to adequately safeguard communities and the environment affected by its financing in the Uyghur Region makes the institution complicit in the repression of Uyghur, Kazakh, and other minoritized citizens.

Using Chinese state media and propaganda, satellite imagery of IFC’s client operations, IFC project documentation, public reports, and corporate disclosures, this report presents credible evidence that IFC financing is contributing to companies committing gross human rights abuses against Uyghur peoples in the region and makes evidence-based recommendations to IFC and other parties.

CNN – Development bank accused of lending millions to companies allegedly linked to forced labor in Xinjiang

The Washington Post – World Bank unit is financing Chinese companies that appear to employ forced laborers, report says

Bloomberg – World Bank Arm’s Lending to Xinjiang-Linked Firms Questioned

South China Morning Post – World Bank accused of ‘funding campaign of repression’ in Xinjiang

Radio Free Asia – World Bank investment arm complicit in China’s repression of Uyghurs, report says

The Print – World Bank ‘funding campaign of repression’ in Xinjiang, says report

The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab is an action-oriented center producing timely research, driving policy change, and building a global coalition dedicated to ensuring human rights, transparency, and accountability in our global information ecosystem.  

For further questions, please reach out to dfrlab@atlanticcouncil.org or visit here.