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Transfer of Young Uyghur Women into Eastern China
(Uyghur Human Rights Project)
Official Government Policy
One of the most pressing and provoking issues to
the Uyghurs in East Turkestan is the recent transfer
of young, unmarried and mostly teenage Uyghur girls
to ‘work’ in factories located in China’s eastern
provinces. Since June 2006, a new policy to recruit
and transfer young Uyghur women has been implemented
in East Turkestan, especially in the southern area
of the region where the Uyghur population is in the
majority, in the name of “providing employment
opportunities and generating income” for the poor
farming families who live there. The eventual goal
of this policy, as part of the 11th Five Year Plan
of the Chinese government, is to transfer some
400,000 young Uyghur women from these farming
families to China’s eastern provinces.
Local authorities consider the transfer of the
Uyghur labor force into China’s eastern provinces as
one of the most important policies of the
government, and they have expressed zero tolerance
to any kind of opposition to it. Speaking at the
Xinjiang Kashgar to Tianjin Labor Force Transfer
Group Leaders Cadres’ Conference in April 2007, Shi
Dagang, Party Secretary of the Kashgar Region, said,
“Transferring the rural labor force is an
all-inclusive and major directional policy, closely
tied to the future development of our region.
Allowing the Uyghur public to work in the exterior
through various means is an important step toward
generating more income for the farmers and
developing the Uyghur people. Whomever obstructs the
Uyghur public from working in the exterior will
become the criminal of Kashgar and the criminal of
the Uyghur people.”
Large-Scale Transfer of Young Uyghur Women
Already, hundreds of thousands of young Uyghur women
have been transferred from East Turkestan into
Beijing, Tianjin, Jiangsu, Qingdao, Shandong,
Zhejiang, and other locations. The Xinjiang Daily
reported on March 20, 2007 that there had been
240,000 instances of the transfer of the local labor
force from the Kashgar Region to China’s eastern
provinces in 2006. Since Han Chinese girls living in
East Turkistan are not recruited and transferred to
work under this new policy, it is assumed that most,
if not all, of these transferred women are Uyghur.
The situation of Yopurgha County of Kashgar Region
is one typical example of the rise in the eastward
transfer of young, female Uyghurs. In 2006 alone
2,450 young Uyghur women, mostly 15- to 22-year
olds, were transferred to Shandong Province to
‘work.’ But these types of figures have been
increasing rapidly in 2007. In Payziwat County, the
number of Uyghur women transferred, mainly to
Tianjin Zhongji Xunqing Clothing Ltd., had already
reached 3,000 for the year 2007 in March. In March
2007 alone, 696 young women were transferred from
this county. In Yengishahar County, 186 Uyghur women
have been transferred in 2007. It is expected the
total number of young women who are involved in this
type of transfer will increase to up to 8,000 by the
end of 2007. In Yarkan County, 500 young women were
transferred in March to work at the Qingdao
Xinyungan Clothing Factory. In February, 500 were
transferred to the Zhejiang Province Bofa Office
Supplies Group Holdings Company and the Qingdao
Xinyungan Clothing Factory. Furthermore, official
plans call for the transfer of a total of 6,000
young Uyghur women from Yarkan County in 2007.
Official Involvement and Harassment
In order to facilitate such large-scale transfers,
local county and village officials, backed by
regional and autonomous governments and through the
use of aggressive propaganda and even coercive
measures, have been heavily involved in forcing
Uyghur farmers to allow their daughters to be
recruited and transferred to China’s eastern
provinces to ‘work.’ Chinese officials have admitted
that they forced farmers to send their daughters to
‘work’ in China’s eastern provinces because they
would have been removed from their posts if they had
refused to do so.
Tursun Barat, the village head of the Number Eight
village in Yarkan County, said, “We did force the
girls to go.” Barat also said that one county
official, who refused to force farmers to send their
daughters away, was removed from his position.
Village officials in the neighboring Number Nine
village threatened farmers with the confiscation of
their farming lands and the destruction of their
houses. The farmers’ daughters were threatened with
the confiscation of their resident registration
cards and the refusal to issue them marriage
certificates. Awut Teyip, the head of the Number
Nine village, while denying any responsibility to
the parents of transferred young women, said, “Our
job is to follow central directives without asking
any questions.”
Treatment of Young Uyghur Women after their Transfer
In order to entice Uyghur parents to send their
daughters to China’s eastern provinces, they are
told that their daughters will be given 500 yuan
(approx. US$65) per month in the early months of the
training period and then 900 to 1,100 yuan (approx.
US$125 to $135) for their work per month. However,
once the young women are transferred, the treatment
they experience is completely different from what
they have been promised. Their salaries are not paid
on time. They are forced to work up to 12 hours each
day. They are not even allowed to speak in Uyghur,
either at work or in their free time. In addition,
they are not allowed to freely return to their
hometowns.
As a result of such harsh treatment, several Uyghur
women have fled to East Turkestan. Patigul Yunus and
Patigul Siyit are two of the 228 Uyghurs women who
were transferred from Yarkan County to Shandong
Province, and later to the city of Qingdao on March
28, 2007. The two girls fled to the regional capital
of Urumchi, not their hometown, after they were
mistreated by both company officials and officials
who had accompanied them during their transfer.
Recently, another young woman, 19 years old, fled to
East Turkestan with six others. She told the Radio
Free Asia Uyghur Service in an interview that the
young women had given alcohol to their directors in
order to make them intoxicated at a party one night,
and that they fled the following morning with the
help of Uyghurs who were doing business near the
factory where they had been working. She also said
that the Uyghurs who helped them were threatened
with arrest for providing them with assistance, so
they left the area as well.
Parents Feel Remorse
Many Uyghur farmers whose daughters have been
transferred to China’s eastern provinces are
speaking out against such transfers and feeling a
great deal of remorse for sending their own children
to places they have never seen or even heard of. For
instance, Aynisa Tohti’s father does not know which
province his daughter, along with 212 other young
women, was transferred to by village officials in
March. He said he was forced to let his daughter
leave and feels great regret for sending her to an
unknown location. He stated that he wanted his
daughter to come back but did not know how to bring
this about. Aynisa’s father is only one of hundreds
of thousands of Uyghur parents who feel tremendous
remorse for sending their daughters to China’s
eastern provinces to ‘work.’
Uyghur Tradition and Official Motives
Traditionally, the Uyghur people do not send their
children, especially young females, to distant
lands, except for sending them to get a higher
education. The transfer of young Uyghur women has
therefore become a major concern among Uyghurs, not
only for those farmers whose daughters have been
transferred to China’s eastern provinces but also
among Uyghur intellectuals, both in East Turkestan
and abroad. Many Uyghurs see such transfers as an
attack on the honor of Uyghur women and the dignity
of Uyghur men. Many also see this as one of the most
humiliating and provocative policies to date on the
part of PRC government authorities. In the Uyghur
culture, it is a most humiliating and provocative
act to take Uyghur women against their will from the
Uyghur community without paying due respect for the
way of life and values of the Uyghur people. Most
Uyghurs view the transfers as just this type of act.
While Uyghurs do not have a tradition of compelling
women to stay at home and prohibiting them from
working outside the home, as in some Middle Eastern
cultures, and they welcome the opportunity to let
their daughters work outside the home, many ask the
question of why their daughters were not given local
jobs, or even sent to get an education, since most
are of school age. They suspect that government
authorities have ulterior motives in offering local
jobs to Han Chinese settlers while simultaneously
sending their daughters to cities and towns in
eastern provinces. They do not seem to be content
with the stated reasons that the authorities provide
to justify the transfers. However, Uyghur parents
seem to be uncomfortable with sending their children
to China’s eastern provinces regardless of the
motives of the PRC government authorities.
At present, local and central government authorities
continue to aggressively implement a policy of
transferring young Uyghur women despite Uyghur
resistance and resentment to the policy. It seems
unlikely that the PRC government will soon change
the policy and stop the transfer of Uyghur girls
into China’s eastern provinces. But this policy has
already backfired and unnecessarily increased
tensions between the Uyghurs and the government. The
further pursuit of this imprudent policy would be
perceived as an extreme insult by the Uyghur people
in East Turkestan, justifiably exacerbating their
feelings of repression and their mistrust of Chinese
government authorities. Continuation of the policy
would certainly not bring about genuine “ethnic
harmony” in East Turkestan, as PRC authorities have
recently touted as one of their primary goals.
Instead, it would only deepen the sense of extreme
mistrust of government officials felt by the Uyghur
community, further marginalize the Uyghur people and
possibly lead to social unrest.
Recommendations
In light of the ethnic marginalization and Uyghur
mistrust of government officials in East Turkestan
and the deeply offensive nature of the large-scale
transfer of Uyghur girls into China’s eastern
provinces, the Chinese government should:
- Immediately stop the implementation of this policy
- Immediately return the Uyghur girls to their
hometowns
- Compensate the girls for their work and travel
expenses
- Send them to local schools or offer them local
jobs
- Punish officials who have forced girls to be
transferred against their will
Emphasis added,
喀什地区经济信息中心,
新疆喀什在津务工领队干部座谈会上的发言（节选),
Apr. 17, 2007, at
http://www.kashi.gov.cn/Article/200704/2026.htm
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