Uyghurs For Sale

‘Re-education’, forced labour and surveillance beyond Xinjiang.

Executive Summary

Since 2017, more than a million Uyghurs and members of other Turkic Muslim minorities have disappeared into a vast network of ‘re-education camps’ in the far west region of Xinjiang,¹⁰ in what some experts call a systematic, government-led program of cultural genocide.¹¹ Inside the camps, detainees are subjected to political indoctrination, forced to renounce their religion and culture and, in some instances, reportedly subjected to torture.¹² In the name of combating ‘religious extremism’,¹³ Chinese authorities have been actively remoulding the Muslim population in the image of China’s Han ethnic majority.

The ‘re-education’ campaign appears to be entering a new phase, as government officials now claim that all ‘trainees’ have ‘graduated’.¹⁴ There is mounting evidence that many Uyghurs are now being forced to work in factories within Xinjiang.¹⁵ This report reveals that Chinese factories outside Xinjiang are also sourcing Uyghur workers under a revived, exploitative government-led labour transfer scheme.¹⁶ Some factories appear to be using Uyghur workers sent directly from ‘re-education camps’.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has identified 27 factories in nine Chinese provinces that are using Uyghur labour transferred from Xinjiang since 2017. Those factories claim to be part of the supply chain of 82 well-known global brands.¹⁷ Between 2017 and 2019, we estimate that at least 80,000 Uyghurs were transferred out of Xinjiang and assigned to factories through labour transfer programs under a central government policy known as ‘Xinjiang Aid’ (援疆).¹⁸

It is extremely difficult for Uyghurs to refuse or escape these work assignments, which are enmeshed with the apparatus of detention and political indoctrination both inside and outside of Xinjiang.¹⁹ In addition to constant surveillance, the threat of arbitrary detention hangs over minority citizens who refuse their government-sponsored work assignments.²⁰

Most strikingly, local governments and private brokers are paid a price per head by the Xinjiang provincial government to organise the labour assignments.²¹ The job transfers are now an integral part of the ‘re-education’ process, which the Chinese government calls ‘vocational training’.²²

A local government work report from 2019 reads: ‘For every batch [of workers] that is trained, a batch of employment will be arranged and a batch will be transferred. Those employed need to receive thorough ideological education and remain in their jobs.’²³

Notes:

(10) https://www.aspi.org.au/report/mapping-xinjiangs-re-education-camps

(11) https://theconversation.com/despite-chinas-denials-its-treatment-of-the-uyghurs-should-be-called-what-it-is-cultural-genocide-120654

(12) https://www.npr.org/2018/11/13/666287509/ex-detainee-describes-torture-in-chinas-xinjiang-re-education-camp

(13) http://archive.ph/NkNJU

(14) http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-12/09/c_138617314.htm

(15) https://www.csis.org/analysis/connecting-dots-xinjiang-forced-labor-forced-assimilation-and-western-supply-chains

(16) https://doi.org/10.1080/02634930903577151

(17) The appendix lists all Chinese and global brands implicated, as well as the cities and provinces in China where the factories are known to be using Uyghur labour.

(18) This estimate is based on data collected from Chinese state media and official government notices.

(19) https://web.archive.org/web/20191212034310/http:/www.mohrss.gov.cn/SYrlzyhshbzb/jiuye/gzdt/201903/t20190321_312709.html

(20) https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/30/world/asia/china-xinjiang-muslims-labor.html

(21) http://archive.ph/wip/Arq8K

(22) https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-16/china-defends-vocational-training-centres/10384096

(23) https://web.archive.org/save/http:/m.ahmhxc.com/gongzuobaogao/16526.html

Between 2017 and 2019, more than 80,000 Uyghurs were transferred to work in 27 manufacturing facilities that supply 83 global brands.

Since 2017, China has drawn the attention of international human rights activists about the massive and forced transfer of Uyghurs to so-called “re-education” camps. Uyghurs are a Turkic speaking Muslim minority who mainly live in Central Asia, in the Xinjiang region, a province in northwestern China home to several ethnic minorities. After “graduating” from the camps, they are sent to work in factories in different regions of the country in slavery-like conditions. Away from their families, with controlled mobility and without the right to practice their religion, the policy reinforces state control in the region and guarantees Chinese factories access to cheap labor.

From 2017 to 2019, the Australian Institute of Strategic Policies (ASPI) exposed the forced transfer of more than 80,000 Uyghurs to 27 manufacturing facilities that supply 83 global brands, including Adidas, Apple, Amazon, Gap, H&M, Microsoft, Nike, Sony, Victoria’s Secret and Zara. The institute’s report gathers information from the past three years collected from Chinese State media, official government notifications, analysis of satellite images, and academic research. It points to clear pieces of evidence of slave-like labor in such factories. The practices stipulated by the “re-education camps” violate international human rights, the Chinese constitution — which prohibits discrimination based on ethnicity and religious belief — and are called a “government-led cultural genocide” by experts.

The forced Uyghur migration has been taking place in China for at least twenty years. But the country only recognized the existence of such a system, and the camps, in 2018, as a response to international pressure. Still, the tone used by Chinese spokesmen to address the issue is positive. In essence, officials deny the use of Xinjiang’s workforce, and the Chinese media declares that participation in the programs is voluntary. However, Uyghurs who manage to escape this system report scenes of constant vigilance, fear, political indoctrination, torture, and privation.

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