China syndromeChina’s Campaign Forcibly to Reduce Uighur Births May Amount to Genocide: Reports

Published 1 July 2020

Four years ago, China has launched a broad campaign to reduce birth rates among Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other Turkic Muslim populations in Xinjiang province in western China. The Chinese authorities have implemented various population control measures in Xinjiang, including mandatory pregnancy checks and forced insertion of intrauterine devices. Officials and armed police conducted night raids to look for hidden children and pregnant women, fining and detaining parents of three or more children and forcing abortions and sterilizations on women.

On Monday, 29 June, the Associated Press and an independent researcher, Adrian Zenz, released two complementary reports documenting the Chinese government’s campaign to reduce birth rates among Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other Turkic Muslim populations in Xinjiang province. According to their investigations, the practice of forced birth control has been “widespread and systematic” in Xinjiang over the past four years. The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect says that such acts could amount to genocide under Article II of the Genocide Convention, which prohibits “imposing measures intended to prevent births” within a targeted group.

Since 2017 the Chinese government has implemented various population control measures in Xinjiang, including mandatory pregnancy checks and insertion of intrauterine devices. Local government directives urged officials to “contain illegal births and lower fertility levels.” Officials and armed police conducted night raids to look for hidden children and pregnant women, fining and detaining parents of three or more children and forcing abortions and sterilizations on women. Local doctors who were suspected of having helped Uighur women have secret home births were also detained.

The Global Center notes that the campaign to reduce Uighur birth rates is part of a wider crackdown across Xinjiang, where approximately one million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities are currently detained in so-called “re-education” or “de-extremification” facilities. While the government claims it is targeting religious extremists and terrorists, ethnic Uighurs are detained for participating in a range of ordinary religious activities such as fasting, praying or growing a beard. “Having too many children” is also among the most common reasons for being sent to the detention camps.

Former Uighur detainees have reported that while in state custody they were subjected to abuse and forced indoctrination. The large-scale detention program, removal of children, systematic destruction of cultural heritage, and lack of information regarding persons in state custody, could also constitute crimes against humanity under international law.

On 26 June fifty-one UN Special Procedures mandate holders issued a joint statement calling for “the establishment of an impartial and independent United Nations mechanism” to monitor and report on the grave human rights situation in China. The Human Rights Council should heed this call and appoint a Special Rapporteur or a Panel of Experts.

“The international community must act now to halt the potentially genocidal campaign being conducted by the Chinese government against the Uighurs and other vulnerable minorities in Xinjiang,” said Nadira Kourt, Program Manager at the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. “Concentration camps and forced sterilization programs are heinous violations of universal human rights and must end immediately.”