Uyghur workers with Hubei Yihong Precision Manufacturing Co. Ltd on their transfer between Xinjiang and Xianning, Hubei. This photograph was taken outside of Wuchang train station in Wuhan, Hubei’s provincial capital, in May 2018. Source: online.

Chinese Government is Profiting From Their Brutal Repression of Religious Freedom

The Uyghur people of the Xinjiang region in China are facing a brutal government campaign to destroy their core religious and cultural identity. China has turned the Xinjiang region into a massive prison where Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities face intrusive technological surveillance, modern day slavery, forced sterilizations and abortions, and imprisonment in concentration camps.

The government also uses many Uyghurs as slave labor to produce goods in Xinjiang and in several other regions of China. Government and media reports have determined that:

  • Many Uyghurs face enslavement through forced labor fields & factories
  • Products, including face masks, made with forced Uyghur labor have entered and been sold in American and western markets
  • Uyghur forced labor has been found to likely be in the supply chains of 82 global companies, including Apple, BMW, Gap, Nike, and Volkswagen

The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (H.R. 1155, introduced Feb. 18, 2021 by Rep. McGovern, D-Mass.) would prohibit all imports from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China unless U.S. Customs and Border Protection can certify that the goods are not produced with forced labor (in whole or in part) and submits to Congress a report outlining such a determination.

This bill, an updated version of H.R. 6210, which passed the House in September 2020 by a vote of 406-3, would also (1) authorize the president to apply targeted sanctions on anyone responsible for the labor trafficking of Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities, (2) require financial disclosures from U.S. publicly-traded businesses about their engagement with Chinese companies and other entities engaged in mass surveillance, mass internment, forced labor, and other serious human rights abuses in the XUAR, and (3) require a strategy report from the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force and regular updates on the steps taken to enforce the prohibition on imports of forced labor-made goods from the XUAR.

Learn more about the Uyghur’s situation and what you can do to help stand for freedom for these oppressed people.