Separation of Uyghur Children From Their Families
It is known that the Chinese government is perpetrating genocide on the Turkic population of East Turkistan. In fact, Beijing has met all five criteria of what constitutes a genocide given by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The fifth criteria of Article 2 in the definition of genocide states as following: “Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group”. The Chinese government has in fact been separating families and has forcibly taken Uyghur children away from their family to place them in state-run orphanages. A group of over 50 legal experts produced a report concerning the Uyghur plight. In this report, it was claimed that “these orphanages are reportedly characterized by overcrowding and inhumane conditions, and are located as far as hundreds of miles from the children’s homes. A number of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) counties received specific quotas from higher authorities to institutionalize such ‘orphans,’ who have often lost both parents to the internment camps or forced labor schemes.” According to a document assessed by the experts, “between 2017 and 2019, the number of children separated from their families and placed into state-run boarding schools in the region increased by 76.9%, from 497,800 to 880,500.” On March 19, 2021, Amnesty International also published a report on the issue of the Chinese government separating Uyghur families. The human rights organization calls on the release of the Uyghur children held in state-run orphanages.