Furniture giant IKEA has agreed to pay 6 million euros ($6.5 million) towards a government fund compensating victims of forced labour under Germany’s communist dictatorship, in a move campaigners hope will pressure other companies to follow.

Ikea is not alone in the matter, as East Germany was a hotspot for cheap labor under the communist regime, which many companies capitalized on. The company is now voluntarily paying €6 million toward a government fund compensating the forced labor victims under East German dictatorship.

Ikea Germany is to give six million euros to a proposed welfare fund as voluntary compensation to victims of the former Communist East German regime forced to make furniture components for the company while imprisoned.

In a statement this week, IKEA Germany announced it would voluntarily put €6 million ($9.9 million) towards the new government fund established to provide compensation to victims of the East German dictatorship.

In what CNN is describing as a "landmark move," IKEA will pay about $6.5 million to compensate the former prisoners who were forced to build furniture for the company in communist East Germany during the Cold War era.