Badger Sportswear (asi/37876) has severed its connection with a Chinese apparel manufacturer that an Associated Press investigation alleged was pulling workers from an internment camp that detained primarily Muslim ethnic minorities in northwestern China.

After the AP’s report made global headlines in December, Badger Sportswear suspended ordering, receiving, and shipping any product from the manufacturer, Heitain Taida Apparel Co., Ltd. Nonetheless, the suspension didn’t stop Badger clients across the country, including colleges and universities, from breaking off business with the Statesville, NC-based apparel supplier.

On Wednesday, Badger posted a statement on its website that said it launched a “multi-faceted” investigation that included internal reviews and aid from outside legal counsel that worked with a global forensic accounting firm. According to Badger, the investigation showed that the particular Hetian Taida facility in the Aidelaisi Industry Zone that it was sourcing from complied with the Badger Global Sourcing Policy, which prohibits use of forced labor. The investigation also indicated that the facility’s operations were consistent with the certification it held from Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production, an independent non-profit that audits factories to check for safe, lawful, humane, and ethical working conditions.

Even so, Badger said lingering doubts about “historical documentation provided by Hetian Taida regarding their prior facility was insufficient to conclude with certainty that it had met Badger’s Global Sourcing Policy,” a company statement said. “Therefore, out of an abundance of caution and to eliminate any concerns about our supply chain given the controversy around doing business in Northwestern China, we will no longer source any product from Hetian Taida or this region of China.”

Additionally, Badger said it will not ship any product sourced from Hetian Taida that it currently has stocked. Goods from the facility accounted for about 1% of Badger’s annual sales, so the supplier doesn’t anticipate an interruption to service.

Chinese government officials panned Badger’s decision to nix its relationship with Hetian Taida, saying it was based on inaccurate information:

It is pathetic for the US' Badger Sportswear to stop cooperation with Chinese enterprises based on wrong information, Chinese FM said on Thursday in response to the #US company announcing it will stop buying products from a #Xinjiang company. pic.twitter.com/qsU3Y2dJ0O

— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) January 10, 2019

Wu Hongbo, chairman of Hetian Taida, previously denied allegations that the company was using forced labor. Rather, he told the AP, Hetian was employing 20 to 30 “trainees” from what the Chinese government calls vocational training centers in Hotan city in southern Xinjiang.

The AP report, however, presented evidence that the training centers are effectively detention camps where an estimated one million people from the Uighur and Kazakh ethnic minority groups are interred. In the secured facilities, authorities order the detainees to renounce their language and Islamic faith, and to pledge loyalty to China’s ruling Communist Party, the AP report found. The AP investigation further alleged that the Chinese government was forcing the interred people to labor in the food and manufacturing industries, with some of the detainees put in a plant belonging to privately-owned Hetian Taida.

This week, the Workers Right Consortium (WRC) said that it conducted an investigation that found additional evidence that the factory from which Hetian Taida supplied Badger was inside an internment camp. “There is nothing in Badger’s statement…that calls into question the conclusion that Hetian Taida used detainee labor while producing for Badger,” Scott Nova, executive director of the Washington-based WRC, told the AP.

In its statement, Badger said in part: “We take extremely seriously any allegations of a supplier not complying with our Global Sourcing Policy. We strive to adhere to the highest manufacturing standards, as we have done for the past 47 years without issue. We are committed to upholding our mission of ‘Quality for All.’”

It is illegal for American companies to import products made with forced labor. U.S. Customs & Border Protection is empowered to seize such products. The agency is reportedly reviewing the allegations of coerced labor at Hetian Taida.