China turns Muslim ‘re-education’ camp detainees into cheap labour force, human rights group claims
- Beijing denies Xinjiang training centres feed factories with low-paid workers
- Former inmate from Kazakhstan says she was told she would be put to work
As Gulzira Auelkhan stitched gloves in a factory in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region, her managers made no secret of where her handiwork would be sold.
“They told us openly that the gloves will be sold abroad, so we should do a good job,” Auelkhan recalled of work she said was enforced by Chinese “re-education” officials.
Auelkhan, a 39-year-old Chinese citizen of Kazakh descent, said she was part of a network of mostly Muslim minorities in Xinjiang who were passed from what China called “vocational training centres” to factories where they were forced to work for far less than the local minimum wage.
China said the education centres were part of its efforts to fight terrorism and separatism in Xinjiang – a region populated by mostly Muslim minorities – and denied human rights campaigners’ claims of forced labour.
But human rights groups, and former workers such as Auelkhan, said the practice used against Chinese minorities was widespread and at least one foreign company dropped its Chinese supplier over concerns.