STOCKOLM - H&M has issued a statement to clarify its current sourcing situation in Ethiopia in response to a programme by leading Swedish television channel TV4 which claims that the retailer, through intermediaries, has been purchasing cotton from areas where there are forced relocations and human rights violations. TV4's Kalla Fakta ("Cold Facts"), which airs tonight (11 November) in Sweden, claims H&M's factories have used cotton coming from an area in southern Ethiopia where indigenous people driven from their land. The programme's makers claim the cotton used in H&M's plants is grown in areas where there is land grabbing, which in Ethiopia sees the state taking land from indigenous people – with the help of the Ethiopian military - to use for cotton and rice cultivation.
