Jessie Lin

Furniture giant IKEA expressed regret and remorse that it benefited from the use of forced labour in the communist East Germany.

The use of forced prison labour in the 1960s was quite common, with IKEA being one of the many companies that utilized it. The company recently released an offiicial report stating that East German prisoners, with many of them being political dissidents, participated in the manufacturing of the goods that were supplied to IKEA 25 to 30 years ago. The managers of IKEA were also aware of this matter and tried to prevent it, though was unsuccessful.

Jeanette Skyjelmose, an IKEA manager, showed great regret and stated that “The use of political prisoners for manufacturing was at no point accepted by IKEA.” She said that the control system back then was at no comparison to the one today, leading in such tragedy. The chairman of the victims’ group UOKG, Rainer Wagner is thankful for IKEA to take the lead on this and pleads IKEA and the other companies to consider compensating these prisoners as most of them suffer form both psychological and physical disorders.

The exploitation of prisoners is not rare, and has not only happened in East Germany. Peter Betzel, the head of IKEA Germany said the company will continue to investigate this matter and support the rest of the prisoners in the future.