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China using Uyghurs as labour for producing COVID-19 PPE kits: Report

Under the government-sponsored programme, the Uyghurs and other ethnic people are sent to factories and other service jobs.

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(Photo via Reuters)
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As the coronavirus cases continue to surge globally, the Chinese companies are using Uyghur labourers through contentious government-sponsored programmes to produce personal protection equipment (PPE) both for domestic purpose and export, the New York Times reported.

Under the government-sponsored programme, the Uyghurs and other ethnic people are sent to factories and other service jobs.

According to an investigation conducted by the NYT, as many as 71 companies are part of the programme.

While the programme is stated to be a poverty reduction initiative, the workers are forced to learn Mandarin and even pledge their loyalty to the Beijing government at weekly flag-raising ceremonies, the NYT findings noted that the products made in these factories are even exported to the US.

It further stated that there are quotas on the number of workers put into the government-sponsored labour programme and there are also penalties for those not willing to participate.

"There are these coercive quotas that cause people to be put into factory work when they don`t want to be," Amy K. Lehr, the Director of the Human Rights Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, was quoted as saying, "And that could be considered forced labour under international law."

Notably, China has over the years remodelled its tactics to wipe out the Uyghur community. In recent years, the Beijing government has begun using technology to conduct its own kind of genocide.

By putting Xinjiang under a grid management system, China is now able to control every aspect of Uyghur`s life -- religious, familial, cultural, and social, the Foreign Policy reported.

Under the grid management system, the cities and villages are split into squares of about 500 people wherein each square has a police station that closely monitors residents by regularly scanning their identification cards, faces, DNA samples, fingerprints, and cell phones.

 

(With ANI inputs)

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