Study: Chinese EV Giant BYD’s Europe Plant Abusing and Trapping Migrant Workers

A human rights organization revealed evidence in a recent report, highlighted by the Guardian on Tuesday, that Chinese automobile giant BYD’s first electric vehicle (EV) plant in Europe, a project advanced by former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Hungary, is subjecting Chinese migrant workers to abuse and forced labor.

The accusations are far from the first that BYD has faced abroad for importing and then enslaving Chinese migrant workers, most prominently in Brazil.

BYD, China’s top carmaker, is a company widely known to hold deep ties to the Chinese Communist Party. The New York-based human rights organization China Labor Watch (CWL) first accused BYD’s Hungarian plant, located in the town of Szeged, in April of abusing Chinese workers by subjecting them to seven-day work weeks, debt-recruitment, excessive overtime, and visa fraud —  all clear violations of EU labour laws.

For years, CWL has dedicated itself to investigating and documenting Chinese factories over their