World Uyghur Congress, 08 March 2021

The World Uyghur Congress submitted a report to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The report provides information to the committee ahead of the pre-sessional working group on 8-12 March 2021, with the view that the Committee members take into consideration the information and ask pointed questions regarding the treatment of the Uyghur population in China.

Article 5 – Elimination of Prejudice and Violence Against Women
In its 2020 State report, China claims that the media has played an important role in promoting gender equality and cites the People’s Daily, Xinhua News Agency. However, the WUC notes that the mainstream media in China has helped support the government’s view on ‘’de-extremification’’, claiming that Uyghur women who were having more children than the family planning policies allowed were associated with extremist values.

Article 10 – The Right to Education
However, the WUC notes that the ‘’bilingual education’’ implemented by China is failing to address the problem that Uyghurs do not benefit from this system, and are not given the opportunity to receive education in their mother tongue.

Article 11 – Employment of Women
The WUC notes that the government has failed to eliminate the forced labour system. A key component of the government’s programme of forced labour against Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples is the use of forced or compulsory labour in or around internment camps, prisons, and workplaces inside the Uyghur Region, as well as across China. This system is paired with an extensive surveillance network

Article 12 – Discrimination in the Field of Health
The WUC considers that with a policy of forced sterilisation and population control targeting Uyghur women in the Uyghur Region, the Chinese government has failed to prevent the use of coercive measures in the implementation of the birth control policy, and protect both women and children.  This policy appears to aim to significantly diminish the Uyghur population and is taking place in the context of the mass arbitrary detention of Uyghur in internment camps, use of Uyghur detainees in forced labour programs, attempts to forcibly assimilate and indoctrination ethnic Uyghurs and a denial of the Uyghur people’s most basic rights and freedoms.

Article 14 – Rural Women
The WUC notes that China has failed to follow the Committee’s recommendation, with an estimated 1.8 – 3 millions of Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples being arbitrarily detained in political indoctrination camps (also called ‘re-education’ centers), since 2017, including women. Those detained in the camps are detained indefinitely without charge, forced to undergo indoctrination classes, march shouting Communist Party slogans, provided very little food throughout the day, and housed in small rooms with many other inmates. Detentions are extra-legal, with no legal representation allowed throughout the process of arrest and incarceration.

The report can be read in full here.