“An arm of the taxpayer-funded World Bank has provided nearly $500 million in financing to four Chinese companies that appear to have employed forced laborers in the country’s Xinjiang region, according to a new report.

“The companies have participated in Chinese government programs that force Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities to take certain factory and farming jobs, according to human rights researchers from a British university and a U.S. nonprofit group. They based their claims on public Chinese company announcements and state media reports.”