The Uyghurs are an ethnic Turkic group who live in the Uyghur Autonomous Region in north-west China. They have a language, which is similar to Turkish, are mostly Muslim, and see themselves as culturally and ethnically close to Central Asian nations and cultures.
There is overwhelming evidence from many sources that the Chinese authorities are committing crimes against humanity, torture and genocide against the Uyghur population and other mostly Muslim Turkic ethnic groups in the north-western region. Human rights groups believe the Chinese government has detained more than one million Uyghurs against their will over the past few years in a large network of what the state calls “re-education camps” and has sentenced hundreds of thousands to arbitrary prison terms despite there being no evidence that they have committed any crimes. There is also evidence that Uyghurs are being used as forced labour and that Uyghur women are being forcibly sterilised or subject to forced abortions. Former camp detainees have also provided evidence that they were tortured and sexually abused. There is evidence that up to one million Uyghur children were forcibly removed from their parents and given to Han Chinese people in a move to destroy their religious and cultural heritage.
On 9th December 2021, an independent Uyghur Tribunal found the Chinese government guilty of committing torture, crimes against humanity and genocide.
Uyghur Women & Faith
Like many oppressive regimes, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cites religious faith and practice as a source of threat to national security. This claim has been used to justify the criminalisation of many daily practices of Muslim people – praying, eating halal, modest dress, reading the Quran, fasting, and community gathering.
The CCP’s narrative of Uyghur women has bound Islamophobic rhetoric with misogyny, viewing women as “dupes of religious extremism” rather than as autonomous individuals practising their customs and exercising their own beliefs. Furthermore, the CCP has also come to see Uyghur women, specifically those who are influential in their communities (known as büwi) as a particular threat. This is because it is often in domestic settings – usually associated with women – where cultural values are passed down.
Since 2017, and an increase of the CCP’s crackdown on Uyghurs to address the rising threat of ‘terrorism’, the CCP treats the private religious and cultural practices of Uyghur people as a clandestine and insurgent national threat facilitated by women of the community.
Genocide Determination
Outside of the destruction of cultural and faith-based practices, the systemic forced sterilisation of Uyghur women demonstrates a horrific and blatant campaign of genocide conducted by the CCP. The prevention of births was one of the key factors, which caused the UK parliament to recognise the treatment of the Uyghur people as genocide.
In the Convention on the Prevention of Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948), one of the five mechanisms of genocide is “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group”. The fact that the CCP is detaining specifically women who practise Islam demonstrably indicates the genocidal intent to destroy the Uyghur people. As clearly articulated in the judgement of the Uyghur Tribunal, “As to genocide…all elements of an intended genocide to be accomplished by a Convention-listed act imposing measures to prevent births within the group are established”.
‘Coupling’ & Forced Marriages
Since 2014 the CCP has been sending male party officials to live with Uyghur women and arrange forced marriages. The CCP has defended this form of ethnic cleansing as being in the interest of “promoting unity and social stability”.
Regimes like the CCP take advantage of gender dynamics to punish women in ways different to men. This is a pattern we see across genocides and crimes against humanity. In the Holocaust, for example, women were disproportionately selected for death because they were reduced in their ability to bear children. How faith has been weaponised against Uyghur women resembles a pattern used in genocides across the world.
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