Human Lives Human Rights: Forced labor, high yield expectations and long working hours, against the Uighurs continue in China’s northwest province of Xinjiang, a new report said.
The International Labor Organization‘s report stressed that China has violated various articles of the Employment Policy Convention of 1964, which Beijing ratified in 1997, including the right to freely choose employment.
The 870-page report, titled Application of International Labor Standards, was an assessment by the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations.
In its report, the ITUC alleged that China continues to engage in widespread and systematic “programmes” involving the extensive use of forced labor of the Uighur and other Turkic and Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.
Some 13 million members of the ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang are targeted based on their ethnicity and religion, the ITUC said, adding that Beijing’s justified its methods in a context of “poverty alleviation”, “vocational training”, “reeducation through labor” and “de-extremification”
Use of forced labor in or around internment or “re-education” camps housing some 1.8 million Uighur and other Turkic or Muslim peoples in the region are some key programmes of China’s abuse.
Life in “re-education centres” or camps is characterised by extraordinary hardship, lack of freedom of movement, and physical and psychological torture, according to the ITUC.
The ITUC alleges that outside Xinjiang, Uighur workers live and work in segregation, are required to attend Mandarin classes and are prevented from practising their culture or religion.
Rights groups urge the government to review its national and regional policies with the aim of eliminating all distinction, exclusion or preference that impairs equality of opportunity.
Trade unions must be able to play their roles in promoting equality of treatment in employment and occupation without discrimination based on race, national extraction, religion or political opinion, the Committee stressed.
Necessary measures must be taken to effectively prevent all forms of forced or compulsory labor.
