Forced Child Separation

The fate of the children whose parents are sent to the camps or living aboard has become deeply horrible. These children have been arbitrarily collected into state-run kindergartens/orphanages or mandatory “boarding schools” where they should live separately from their relatives and communities [1]. They are forced to learn Mandarin Chinese, while their access to Uyghur language education is totally banned. Moreover, the children are strictly prevented from exercising their religion [2]. These kindergartens are more like prisons as they are closed even during the weekends and their walls have barbwires [3]. In winter 2019, VICE News correspondent Isobel Yeung and her colleague approached a couple of such boarding schools in Hotan, but they were not able to enter any of them. Some Uyghurs they interviewed in Turkey said, in tears, that they had recognized their own children in the video footages leaked from those schools [4]. Bitter Winter also presents several videos about those children who are suffering in those camps and crying for seeing their parents. The physical as we all psychological trauma those children are going through is unimageable [5].

In the 2017 policy document of the Chinese Ministry of Education, these boarding schools are planned to be further expanded as a top priority [6]. China expert Adrian Zenz calls the effort a “systematic campaign of social re-engineering and cultural genocide” in his paper published in the Journal of Political Risk [7]. According to some estimates, currently around half a million children are being forcibly indoctrinated in those boarding schools [8]. The Chinese Department of Education admits that children as young as eight are enrolled in these schools,[9] yet there is evidence that children as young as 4 years of age are also targeted [10].

All of these are reminiscent of the residential schools of Canada which were regulated for the indigenous peoples in the past. While the Canadian government has already apologized for the damage and loss the dislocated education brought to its indigenous groups,[11] the Chinese government has been increasing the investment and support for those boarding schools under the name of assisting those underprivileged children. The primary goal of such a project can be seen as political – stripping away their Uyghur identity. Using education for cultural assimilation, rather than promoting diversity is a form of cognitive imperialism.

References

[1] "China is putting Uighur children in 'orphanages' even if their parents are alive". independent.co.uk.
[2] Choi, Christy. "China accused of rapid campaign to take Muslim children from their families". theguardian.com.; "Xinjiang: China, where are my children?” BBC News. 5 July 2019.
[3] Human Rights Watch, (2019, September 15). “China: Xinjiang Children Separated from Families.” Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/09/15/china-xinjiang-children-separated-families; The Washington Post (2019, July 13). China is brainwashing Uighur children. How much longer will the world look away? Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/china-is-brainwashing-uighur-children-how-much-longer-will-the-world-look-away/2019/07/13/3eccef86-a1bf-11e9-bd56-eac6bb02d01d_story.html
[4] Vice News (June 29, 2019). China’s Vanishing Muslims: Undercover In The Most Dystopian Place In The World. Vice News. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7AYyUqrMuQ
[5] For more information, see Video: Uyghur Children Indoctrinated in Campshttps; Feng, Emily (9 July 2018). "Uighur children fall victim to China anti-terror drive". Financial Times.; Dake Kang, Yanan Wang and (21 September 2019). "China treats Uighur kids as 'orphans' after parents seized". apnews.com. The Associated Press.
[6] For more information, see http://www.moe.gov.cn/jyb_xwfb/xw_zt/moe_357/jyzt_2016nztzl/ztzl_xyncs/ztzl_xy_dxjy/201801/W020180109353888301306.pdf
[7] Adrian, Zenz, “Brainwashing, Police Guards and Coercive Internment: Evidence from Chinese Government Documents about the Nature and Extent of Xinjiang’s ‘Vocational Training Internment Camps’”, 2019, July 7.  The Journal of Political Risk. 7(7).
[8] Amy Qin (updated 2020, Feb. 17). In China’s Crackdown on Muslims, Children Have Not Been Spared. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/28/world/asia/china-xinjiang-children-boarding-schools.html?auth=login-google
[9] Cheng, Ching-Tse. "China sends 500,000 Uyghur children to 'detention camps'". taiwannews.com.tw. Taiwan News.
[10] Amy Qin (updated 2020, Feb. 17). In China’s Crackdown on Muslims, Children Have Not Been Spared. The New York Times.
[11] Anaya, J. (2014). Report of the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples. United Nations General Assembly.