{"id":1003,"date":"2021-12-21T16:51:26","date_gmt":"2021-12-21T13:51:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/?p=1003"},"modified":"2021-12-21T16:51:28","modified_gmt":"2021-12-21T13:51:28","slug":"uyghur-women-in-china-labor-camps-recall-horror-of-rape-forced-sterilization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/uyghur-women-in-china-labor-camps-recall-horror-of-rape-forced-sterilization\/","title":{"rendered":"UYGHUR WOMEN IN CHINA LABOR CAMPS RECALL HORROR OF RAPE, FORCED STERILIZATION"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

New York Post<\/a>. 18 December 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Below is an article published by New York Post<\/a>. Photo:NY Post photo composite.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2017, TursunayZiyawudun was arrested off the street in northern China\u2019s Xinjiang region, forced by police officers to turn over her passport and taken to a prison camp about 30 minutes from her village. There, she was made to sing communist songs of patriotism and repeatedly told that her Muslim religion does not exist. After a month, she developed stomach issues, fainted and was released.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey sent me to the hospital,\u201d Ziyawudun, who came to the United States as a political refugee in 2020, told The Post. \u201cIf they hadn\u2019t I might have died.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The year after she was arrested off the street, still in China, she was summoned to a police station and told that she needed to complete her training. She was sent back to the \u201cre-education\u201d camp, where her hair was shorn \u2014 likely to be sold as a wig \u2014 and her earrings were ripped out. \u201cThey pulled it so hard that my ears were bleeding,\u201d Ziyawudun recalled. \u201cI was being treating like an animal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breaking down and crying, she said: \u201cI was gang-raped and my private parts were tortured with electricity. You\u2019re left with marks on your body that make you not want to look at yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey gave me sterilization pills,\u201d said Ziyawudun. \u201cI am pretty sure that is why I cannot have a baby now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her story is, tragically, not uncommon for members of the minority Uyghur religion, with Turkish roots, in President XI Jinping\u2019s China. Since around 2016, they have been pulled off the street and sent to reeducation camps \u2014 where reports have surfaced about people being tortured, raped and even killed. They are sent there under the auspices of learning a trade and having their patriotism reinforced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Thursday, the US Senate followed the House\u2019s lead in passing the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which promises to ban imports coming from the Xinjiang region \u2014 home to some 12 million Uyghur people \u2014 unless there is proof the goods were not produced by forced labor. It\u2019s now waiting to be signed by President Biden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amelia Pang, author of \u201cMade in China: A Prisoner, an SOS Letter, and the Hidden Cost of America\u2019s Cheap Goods,\u201d acknowledged that the act is a huge deal that \u201churts China\u2019s plan. China has invested a lot of money into making an important trade route [that goes through Xinjiang] a key part of what is called its Belt and Road Initiative. It\u2019s a trillion-dollar project to connect China to Central Asia and Europe and the Middle East. It\u2019s almost too big to fail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey are afraid of an uprising in the region. They are so afraid of losing out on their investment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But she pointed out that, to be effective, the act needs the teeth of corporate executives: According to a study published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, companies such as Nike, BMW and Apple use components and materials produced directly or indirectly by forced labor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe supply chain is murky \u2026 and there is not a whole lot of accountability,\u201d Pang told The Post, adding that large corporations often look the other way and avoid asking the right questions. \u201cThey need to think about whether the money they are paying [for manufacturing] can realistically meet the wages from that region. Factories follow the bottom line and outsource to prison camps where workers are basically slave labor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An Apple spokesman told The Post, \u201cWe conducted over 1,100 audits, including surprise audits, and interviewed more than 57,000 workers to insure that our standards are upheld \u2026 We have found no evidence of forced labor anywhere in our supply chain.\u201d Representatives for Nike and BMW did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next time you\u2019re tempted to purchase a pair of leather gloves made in China, think of Gulzira Auelkhan. She spent two and a half months in a forced labor camp near the country\u2019s northern border, working for pennies per hour stitching gloves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere were cameras and police and you could not sit,\u201d she told The Post. \u201cI worked constantly, 14 hours a day, and was yelled at so much that it began to feel normal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amazingly, what kept Auelkhan, who received political asylum in the United States earlier this year, from slowing down on the assembly line was a fear that she would be relieved of her labor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you said you did not want to work, you went back to the [prison] camp, where you would be tortured,\u201d she said. \u201cI felt like a slave but it was better than being in the other camp.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, Ziyawudun recalled the looming threat of being summoned to a space that women in her prison camp referred to as \u201cthe dark room.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe were all scared of it. When the police wanted to threaten us, they\u2019d say they were going to take us to that room,\u201d Ziyawudun said. \u201cAnything you can think of, including rape, takes place in that room.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pang is not surprised: \u201cRape is pretty standard in forced labor camps,\u201d she said. \u201cThe goal is to brainwash prisoners into being patriotic and extremely aligned with the Chinese state.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bob Fu, founder and president of China Aid, an organization with the mission of advancing religious freedom in China, was told by a former prisoner that the sexual brutality comes with a commercial component.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe rescued a woman who was eyewitness to a program that the government organized for prostitution,\u201d Fu told The Post. \u201cShe was handcuffed to the bed, the man did his thing and she cried. She said she heard the man shouting and complaining that he had paid good money for this and she was crying.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiendishly convenient for the Chinese, according to Kuzzat Altay, CEO of Cydeo, an international software-coding boot camp, the use of forced labor in hundreds of camps and factories scattered around the country allows the Chinese government to undercut manufacturing costs around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChina keeps prices low and Americans keep buying Chinese products cheaply,\u201d said Altay, a former resident of Xinjiang who moved to America in 2008 and is an outspoken opponent of the country\u2019s human right abuses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChina\u2019s entire supply chain of manufacturing involves forced labor. They make shoes, pants, solar panels in these forced-labor factories,\u201d he told The Post. \u201cThe Chinese economy is a vehicle for oppression and a source of influence in Silicon Valley, Hollywood and Wall Street. That money comes from slavery.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Altay\u2019s 67-year-old father was kept in a prison camp for two years, held there, supposedly, so the government could teach him a trade that could help the Communist Party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For two years after, Altay said, \u201cI did not know if he was alive or not. I cried every day. It was mental torture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately. Altay\u2019s father emerged with his organs intact. \u201cOrgan harvesting is normal in the Chinese Communist Party,\u201d Altay said. \u201cThey are known for this. There are some rich Middle Eastern clients who want Muslim kidneys\u201d \u2014 which are free of alcohol and pork. \u201cSo Uyghur people were having their kidneys taken.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2019, a group called the China Tribunal offered testimony to the United Nations Human Rights Council, maintaining that \u201cforced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience has been committed for years throughout China on a significant scale.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Altay views this as more than pure cruelty \u2014 saying it\u2019s also a form of slow-motion genocide. \u201cThe women get sterilized because the Chinese government wants to minimize the Uyghur population,\u201d he said. \u201cRight now the population growth is almost zero percent. In 10 years it will be zero.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chinese government spokespeople have denied this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pang believes that the way to help put a stop to all of it is for Western consumers to stop buying goods that have been made with forced labor \u2014 a movement she calls \u201cethical consumerism\u201d \u2014 and for the Nikes of the world to respond appropriately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf it\u2019s not lucrative for the Chinese factories to use forced labor, if they can lose major contracts,\u201d she said, \u201cit will have an impact on these camps.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it will allow American manufacturers to compete on a more level playing field. As Altay put it: \u201cYou buy something made in China, you are giving China a bullet to shoot back to America.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New York Post. 18 December 2021 Below is an article published by New York Post. Photo:NY Post photo composite. In 2017, TursunayZiyawudun was arrested off the street in northern China\u2019s Xinjiang region, forced by police officers to turn over her passport and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1003"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1004,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003\/revisions\/1004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}