H&M disappears from leading Chinese online shopping sites

Swedish clothing retailer H&M disappeared from major Chinese shopping sites and mapping apps after resurfaced comments, reportedly from last year, about its concerns over alleged forced labor in China’s western region of Xinjiang, CNBC reports.

A CNBC search for “H&M” and “hm” in English on Taobao, the e-commerce site run by Alibaba, and JD.com yielded no results. Meanwhile, Alibaba-owned mapping app Amap as well as Baidu Maps did not display any results for the search term “H&M.”

JD.com declined to comment when contacted by CNBC. Alibaba and Baidu were not immediately available for comment.

Xinjiang is home to the Uyghur Muslims, who have been identified by the United Nations, United States, United Kingdom and others as a repressed ethnic group. In their first coordinated move in response to allegations of forced labor, the U.S., European Union, Britain and Canada jointly imposed sanctions on Chinese officials this week over China’s alleged human rights violations and abuses in Xinjiang.