Ascena Retail Group, the parent company of Ann Taylor and Loft, was named in a report from the Helena Kennedy Centre, published in November 2021, as one of many international brands whose supply chains were linked to textile companies known to source cotton from Xinjiang, who also own subsidiaries documented to have employed state-sponsored labour transfers.
Ascena has not responded to the report’s findings.
An investigation into how forced-labor-produced cotton and cotton-based goods from the Uyghur Region wend their way into international supply chains. Based on international trade and customs data, the report concludes that at the same time as Xinjiang cotton has come to be associated with human rights abuses and to be considered high risk for international brands, China's cotton industry has benefited from an export strategy that obscures cotton's origin in the Uyghur Region.