The tears of Uighurs
Imagine a small room crammed with at least 50 other women. Then imagine being forced to stick your arm out through a hole so you can receive an injection. The contents of the shot or the reason for its administration are never disclosed. In the next weeks and months, you realize that it was meant as a sterilization tool that would prevent you from becoming pregnant.
This is not a hypothetical episode in a science fiction novel or a horror movie. It is the reality of the internment camps being run by the Chinese Government. Labeled “wartime concentration camps” by researchers, the camps are particularly perilous for women. One former detainee named Mihirigul Tursun, who was released from a camp in Xinjiang, described a situation in which women lived in despicable circumstances and under constant surveillance. Daily activities included being forced to sing Chinese Communist Anthems and using the bathroom while being under constant surveillance. The first time Mihirigul was detained (during a visit to Xinjiang to visit her family) her three children who were triplets were also taken. One of the three triplets died during the internment and the others appeared to have been operated upon. Mihirigul also described having to put on a metal helmet and receiving what she described as electric shocks.
Reports such as these have been emerging from Xinjiang for months and even years now. A report from as far back as 2013, reported that forced abortions had been carried out on women from the Hotan prefecture in Xinjiang. In the case, the women were not yet dragged to camps but were injected with an abortion-inducing drug via the town’s family planning division. In one case the woman delivered the baby but it died within an hour. Six years later, the campaign against the Uighur women, particularly their capacity to bear children continues to be a target. The premise behind it seems to be simple and deadly; in the effort to erase Uighur culture and identity, eliminating even the possibility of future generations is a high priority. If no Uighur women can have children, then there will be no future generations of Uighurs. In the larger landscape of Uighur eradication that the Chinese Government has set up, this along with the prohibition on Islamic religious practice, use of Uighur language and massive and constant surveillance, it will help eliminate Uighurs altogether.
Despite the reports that are emerging from China on a regular basis, no definitive action has been taken.
Rafia Zakaria
The reports of sterilization that have emerged recently necessarily point to comparisons with what was done to Jewish women who were rounded up and interned in Nazi concentration camps by Adolf Hitler. The details of those abuses included just the sort of medical experimentation and torture that is being reported from China’s camps. Just as the Chinese Government wants to eradicate Uighur culture and identity so too did the Nazis wish to eradicate the Jewish people. Just like China now, the Nazis then sterilized Jewish women.
The irony of the comparison is that what happened in Germany before and during World War II was never supposed to happen again. When the war ended and the stories of what happened in concentration camps came to the fore, a regime of international human rights was created to prevent just as a recurrence. Through mechanisms such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and institutions like the United Nations, the world thought, there would be no repetition of these horrors ever again.
This has proven to be untrue. As the liberal order crumbles, with autocratic and fascist leaders ascending in governments around the world, the safeguards that were put into place during the post World War era are proving insufficient. Despite the reports that are emerging from China on a regular basis, no definitive action has been taken. The violations being suffered by the women are known and yet no recourse is available to any of them. By and large, the world seems to read the reports and then pretend they never did.
The world does not turn away from all suffering women. A few years ago, when the horrific reports of Yazidi women abused by Daesh emerged, they were splattered (rightfully so) across the front pages of the world’s newspapers. Notable escapees such as Nadia Murad got to address the United Nations and celebrity lawyers like Amal Clooney added their star power to the cause.
Not so when the abused are Muslim Uighur women. The world it seems is much more willing to accept the Orientalist equation of barbarous and abusive Muslim men then of an entire Muslim minority being abused. In this case, when Muslim women are not being abused by Muslim men their suffering seems to attract little sympathy and attention. Even as human rights groups continue to decry what is happening the issue has yet to become a matter known to everyone around the world.
It is undoubted that this lack of attention is going to be paid for by Uighur Muslims and Uighur Muslim women in particular. The Chinese government is only going to be emboldened by the fact that it can do these things to innocent women simply because of their religious and cultural identity, and escape the world’s censure. The desperate situation of these women also requires the attention of Muslim publics around the world. If they have concern and sympathy for their Uighur Muslim sisters then now is the time to raise their voices, share posts and articles and tweets detailing their plight. The world’s attention may not eliminate the torture and tribulation being heaped on them by the Chinese government, but it will impose a cost in terms of accountability for them.
