Uyghur parents who went abroad for work or study have often not seen or spoken to their children for years. Many children are held in ‘orphanages’ of the Chinese state. Some children are only a few years old, Amnesty International said in a new report.
The organization spoke to parents who no longer have contact with their children, who in some cases are only a few years old.
“China’s relentless mass detention campaign in Xinjiang has placed separated families in an impossible situation. Children are not allowed to leave the country, while their parents face prosecution and arbitrary detention when they return home to care for their children,” said Alkan Akad from Amnesty International.
According to Akad, the stories that parents tell are heartbreaking. This, he says, is only “the tip of the iceberg” in terms of the suffering of Uyghur families separated from their children. “The Chinese authorities must end their callous policies in Xinjiang. They must ensure that these families can be reunited as soon as possible, without fear of being sent to camp.”
Amnesty interviewed six Uyghur families living in the Netherlands, Australia, Canada, Italy and Turkey. They left China before 2017, when Chinese authorities intensified oppression against Uyghurs and other Muslims.
Uyghur in the Netherlands has had no contact with son for years
Uyghur Rizwangul worked as a salesman in Dubai in 2014 and returned to Xinjiang every year to see her son. However, in 2017 she was told it was no longer safe. Since then, Rizwangul, who now lives in the Netherlands, has lost contact with her son, sister and friends in Xinjiang.
“It’s so hard for others to understand what I’m feeling,” says Rizwangul. “The only thing that keeps me going is that I want to know that he is alive, that he is well. If I could talk to him now I would say, Forgive me, I brought you into this world, but I couldn’t take care of you, I couldn’t be a mother to you. “
China is adopting a strategy of mass repression against the Uyghurs, a minority Muslim people from Xinjiang Province. An estimated one million Uyghurs are ‘re-educated’ in detention centers that, according to human rights organizations, are more like concentration camps. There, Uyghur women are, among other things, forcibly sterilized, witnesses say.
The House of Representatives took one at the end of February motion in which China’s attitude towards the Uyghurs is referred to as genocide. The outgoing cabinet does not want to speak of genocide until the UN or an international court uses that term, but does state that China is committing “large-scale human rights violations” in Xinjiang. Beijing denies that in all keys.
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