Businesses in China's Xinjiang Use Forced Labor Linked to Camp System
January 01, 2019The women were sent to work in the Yining County Textile Industrial Park after being released from an internment camp, and expected to work 12 hour shifts and undergo an hour’s “political education” every day for the money, sources said. When they refused to go along with the terms of the contract, they were sent back to the camp, they said. One source said the majority of the textile park’s 2,000 employees are former camp inmates who work 12 hours a day, with one hour’s “political study” after finishing their shifts at 7.00 p.m.
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Ethnic minority Muslims in Xinjiang wanting to apply for a passport must gain approval from their village or neighborhood committee, the township government, their local police station and police department, and their employer, which is required to issue a document vouching that they have no relatives overseas. The process can drag on for months. And even passport-holders must now find a government employee to act as guarantor in their absence, and any overseas trips are limited to 15 days, sources said. An anonymous source in Xinjiang’s Altay prefecture said the policy is now in operation across the region.
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“After returning to China, they will undergo 20 days of uninterrupted questioning about who they met with in Kazakhstan, what was said, whether any state secrets were revealed,” the source said. “They repeat the same questions many times, and if you give a different answer from the last time, you will be sent to a re-education camp.” Anyone traveling to Kazakhstan is also warned that Chinese security personnel will be watching them at all times wherever they are, according to another source, who also confirmed the claims made by the other sources about overseas travel.