KUALA LUMPUR, (Reuters) – The United States Customs and Border Protection has stopped imports of Malaysian gloves manufacturer Brightway Group because they are suspected to have used forced labour practices.

The ban is Malaysia’s sixth in 18-months and fifth on the glove industry sector of the country since September 2019.

Brightway has not yet responded to my request for comment.

CBP issued an order to withhold disposable gloves manufactured in Malaysia by three firms in the group, Brightway Holdingss, Laglove, and Biopro, from Monday.

It stated in a statement that the action was based on information that “reasonably indicates that forced labour has been used in that entity’s manufacturing operations.”

CBP claimed that it identified 10 indicators from the International Labour Organization of forced labor in its investigation of Brightway.

Malaysian officials raided Brightway’s premises in December 2013 and discovered workers living inside shipping containers. The conditions were so poor that M. Saravanan the human resource minister later compared them with “modern slavery”.

G. Baskaran the managing director of the company, was asked by Reuters in May about raids. Baskaran said the company did not use forced labour and modern slavery, according to audit reports for 2019-2020.

CBP launched investigations into Brightway approximately a month later than the Malaysian raids. According to Reuters’ letter,