THIS IS PART TWO OF A FIVE-PART EDITORIAL SERIES.
*A full warning about content that may be viewed as offensive, triggering and/or otherwise distasteful is being provided now. This article will discuss acts of rape, forced abortion, sterilization, murder, torture, forced labor and genocide. This writing is meant to help give the Uighur people a voice, and to show that they are being thought about, cared about and fought for in as many ways as possible. The Uighur people deserve their lives, their families, their culture and the one thing that we all hold dear: their freedom. *
Forced Labor
One staple of all acts of genocide is that the parties committing them often do not let the labor of those being erased go to waste. The same is true here, as “Xinjiang is home to 84 percent of China’s cotton and therefore is a major supplier to China’s clothing manufacturers,” according to a report by Citizen Power Initiatives for China (CPIC). The region traditionally “…used to rely on seasonal, migrant workers from other provinces in China.” However, there has been a shift in this source of labor as apparently “the newly found supply of local labor has both solved this labor crisis and helped increase profits for the growers.” This shift stems from a move by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to enslave and use the labor of the Uighur people and to exploit them to help improve the profits on the products made by them.
The cotton fields in the Xinjiang region are being supplied by the forced labor of the Uighur people. In addition to the work in the cotton field, it has been viewed through satellite imaging that the CCP has built hundreds if not thousands of factories in or near their “reeducation camps” and are potentially using the persons in the camps to fill these factories and turn out products. These claims of course cannot be completely confirmed due to the CCP refusing to allow any person to film, photograph or document anything having to do with these factories; however, the satellite imagery and accounts for persons who have escaped Xinjian provide at least the accusation that the CCP must address.
One account of these acts comes from Tahir Hamut, an ethnic Uighur who grew up in Xinjian. He claims that he “began working in a labor camp during elementary school at the command of the Chinese government.” He was later arrested and sent to a “reeducation camp” where he was “forced into doing unpaid labor where he completed various tasks such as making bricks, shoveling gravel, and picking cotton.” This labor is “incentivized” with threats of beatings for anyone who was unable to complete their duties. The story of Hamut is only one in the 500,000 to 800,000 Uighur prisoners who are in these camps and are forced to work under these conditions for allegedly no pay at all on top of the constant threat of beatings or death.
Much like other acts of genocide, the CCP claims that they are paying the Uighurs for their work and have gone as far as claiming that when the Uighurs are working in these fields or factories, they are free participants in a voluntary program. You may think that being paid is not forced labor; however, according to the International Labor Organization “1. For the purposes of this Convention, the term forced or compulsory labour shall mean all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily” [SIC]. Therefore, the threats of beatings and the fact most of the persons involved in this program are only sent there due to their arrest by the CCP means that this labor is forced.
It is important to note that even with all of this, the CCP is also claiming they are doing this for the good of the Uighur people. The CCP has claimed that all of these actions are a part of their “poverty alleviation scheme” Whatever the motives are for this forced labor, it is important to note that the products from this forced labor are probably some that people rather enjoy and may be in your own household as you are currently reading this. These companies include “Disney, Adidas, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger and Nike,” all of whom have their material made in China and keep the demand for these products open and in high supply. It is nearly impossible for some companies to trace where their cotton comes from, meaning that the number of companies involved here is more than likely larger than we realize.
It is entirely possible that massive parts of our economy and trade with China are from the forced labor of the Uighurs, and there is no real way to know where and what is made from this labor.
Culture eradication:
Another part of these events and one of the larger indicators that this is genocide is the CCP’s attempt to destroy Uighur culture outside the walls of the prisons that they build. “As thousands of Uyghurs were being sent off to “transformation through re-education centres, party officials redoubled their efforts to transform Uyghur domestic space in the name of President Xi Jinping’s “beautiful China” initiative.” This “initiative” is essentially no different than what European colonists did to natives when they thought them as “savages” who needed to be civilized by a higher people and thus stripped them of traditional housing facilities. Often times this transformation is defended as “modernizing” the Uighur people’s homes and helping to bring them into the 21st century; however, this act of doing so, as one can see from the pictures included in this link, is ripe with CCP propaganda and complete eradication of anything the Uighur people have traditionally kept in their homes. This whole transformation has nothing to do with “beautiful China.” This is cultural eradication and complete removal of Uighur values and customs out of the home to demoralize and devalue the many traditions that the Uighurs value in their homes, a most sacred place to their people.
Part three of this editorial series will focus on accounts of sexual assault and rape of the Uighur people in labor camps. To catch up on this series, you can read part one here and part three here. Read The Lamron in the following weeks to stay informed on the devastating events occurring in China.