US official says United Nations has a ‘lack of curiosity’ about reported abuses in China’s Xinjiang region
- US ambassador-at-large on women’s issues says practices in China show a ‘pervasive pattern of targeting women’ in Muslim minority groups
- American accuses UN of failing to speak out about the situation in Xinjiang and failing to demand access to investigate
Citing reports of forced birth control, home visits and sexual violence in detention centres, ambassador-at-large on women’s issues Kelley Currie said such practices showed a “pervasive pattern of targeting women”.
“It’s really remarkable to me as someone who used to work at the UN the complete lack of curiosity or concern we see from the UN on what are really grave allegations and very widespread and quite disturbing human rights abuses,” said Currie, who also serves as the US representative at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.
The UN is “failing to speak out about the situation in Xinjiang, failing to demand access in a meaningful way and to investigate these very serious and credible allegations”, Currie told reporters on a media call.
The Trump administration withdrew the US from the UN Human Rights Council in 2018, citing what it said was a bias against Israel and the human rights track records of member countries.
US House passes bill to force firms to disclose Xinjiang-sourced materials
China was re-elected to the council this month in a move condemned by major democratic nations and human rights groups.
On Tuesday, a group of US senators introduced a resolution to call what is happening in Xinjiang genocide.
China has maintained that there are no human rights abuses in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, denouncing reports to the contrary as fabrications. Critics say China has detained more than 1 million Uygurs, Kazakhs and members of other Muslim groups under prison-like conditions in political indoctrination centres across the vast region.
China at first denied the existence of the centres, but now says they are intended to teach job skills and deradicalise potential terrorists and religious extremists.
“The so-called genocide in Xinjiang is a rumour deliberately concocted by some anti-China forces and a farce to slander China,” foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Wednesday.
