China using job placement firm to transfer Uyghur Muslims across mainland: Report

Despite an increasing slander from the west, China is adamant about not changing its policies towards the Uighurs, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority community residing primarily in the Xinjiang region. In its latest report, Radio Free Asia said that Chinese authorities were now forcing Uyghurs from their homeland in Xinjiang province to other parts of the country. It further revealed that the transportation was being done with the help of a job placement company based on the mainland.

According to RFA, the placement firm had already transferred over 3,000 Uyghur workers including children as young as 16 years of age from the camps to other parts of the country. In an advertisement, which was circulated on social media platforms, the firm detailed that all the workers had “good Mandarin Chinese Skills", "vocational school degrees" amongst other qualifications. A further investigation by the think tank showed that all the firm was planning to relocate thousands of other Uyghur people by the end of next year. 

Meanwhile, spilling details, the report stated that the workers have been transferred to two locations- Nanjiang and Jiangsu. Working at the aforementioned locations, the Uyghurs have received salaries of 2,000 yuan per month. Meanwhile, the companies which hired them received a 600 yuan subsidy per worker every month. Since 2017, more than 1.8 million Uyghurs have been admitted to the apparently “re-education” camps. Last month, a discreet report revealed that Bejing was auctioning the Uyghur properties. 

Is it China's ethnic cleansing?

China has detained more than a million Uyghurs, reasoning that it needs to 'eliminate extremism.' Earlier, the European Parliament had observed that Chinese authorities were deliberately sending Uyghur women of childbearing age into forced abortions, intrauterine injections and sterilisation. However, Beijing has consistently denied allegations of forced labour and other claims of human rights abuses in the area, which is home to about 11 million Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority that speak a language closely related to Turkish and have their own distinct culture. The US State Department estimates that since 2017, up to two million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other ethnic minorities could have passed through the camp system, which China calls vocational training centres designed to fight extremism.

Image: AP