Uyghur, Kazakh, and other ethnic minority survivors of China’s brutal concentration camp system told the BBC in an extensive report published Wednesday that they witnessed and endured rape at the hands of Chinese government agents on a regular basis, including the use of electric batons to rape and torture women.
China has been operating concentration camps in Xinjiang, its westernmost and largest region, since at least 2018. While estimates suggested as many as 3 million people were imprisoned in the concentration camp system at its peak, the most recent estimates from the U.S. government suggest a population of about 2 million people remain trapped there. The number dropped after reports that the Chinese Communist Party sold concentration camp victims as slaves to factories nationwide. Beijing officials claimed the missing prisoners had simply “graduated” from the camps.
China admits to building and maintaining the camps, but claims they are “vocational training centers” where members of local majority-Muslim ethnic minorities, particularly members of the Uyghur community, can learn the trade skills they need to compete with Han Chinese peers in the modern Chinese economy.
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