New Report: "Mass Detention and Forced Assimilation of Uyghur Children in China"

Recently, Cornell University Associate Professor Magnus Fiskesjö and Canadian independent researcher Ms. Rukia Turdush jointly published a report titled " Mass detention and forced assimilation of Uyghur children in China ." This report was published on July 19 on the website of "East Turkistan National Interest Center" in Canada.

This report focuses on the consequences of children who have been separated from their parents and families and taken away by the Chinese government during the mass abductions that began in Uyghur in 2017.

Reports "Children in Colonial East Turkistan", "The New Genocide of 2017: Why Children Are a Special Focus?", "The Impact of China's Mass Separation of Children from Families and Institutionalized Education", "Evidence on Official Statements on China's Government Actions and Institutions" ” and the final “Conclusion” section. It also provides vivid evidence of the Chinese government separating children from their families, preventing children from being reunited with their parents, brainwashing, and restricting their mother tongue.

One of the report's authors, Cornell University Associate Professor of Anthropology Magnus Fiscaccio, told our radio station that the vast majority of news and reports about the Chinese government's genocidal policy against the Uighurs focused on adults. Therefore, this report was published in order to draw attention to the situation of Uyghur children.

"If you look at the information and the news about the genocide that's going on in China, the vast majority of it is about adults," he says . Reports since 2017 have featured adults being abducted and forced into forced labor, and the abuse of Uyghur women. However, Uyghur children who were separated from their parents were overlooked. So Rukia and I decided to write this report to draw attention to this issue.”

Mr. Magnus said that for this purpose, they also held a seminar titled "Uighur Children in the Chinese Genocide" at the East Asian Studies Department of Cornell University on October 27, 2023. Mrs. Rukia Turdush, camp witness Ms. Zumrat Davut and her children, Adrian Zenz, director of the China Department of the Victims of Communism Memorial Fund, Magnus Fiskesio, associate professor of anthropology at Cornell University, as well as James, who is known for his research on boarding schools from indigenous tribes in North America, attended the meeting. Associate professors such as Palmyra and Amy Bombay were invited.

Mrs. Rukia Turdush, one of the authors of the above report, told our radio station that the report was written based on the above seminar held at Cornell University, and the purpose of the assimilation policy for Uyghur children was fully explained.

The report shows that hundreds of thousands of children are being held in state-run schools and orphanages as a result of the Chinese government's unprecedented mass abduction campaign against Uighurs. Separated from their families, siblings and cultural roots, these children are forbidden to speak their mother tongue and live in their own culture. They even faced harsh punishments such as beatings and torture for doing so.

Magnus Fiskesio told our radio that hundreds of thousands of children and even more Uyghur children would not have to live in the above situation.

"Hundreds of thousands of children were separated from their families and placed in boarding schools, where they were prevented from speaking their mother tongue and learning their culture," she says . The parents of these children were sent to camps, prisons or forced labor. These children are not allowed to see their parents, and the vast majority may never see them again. Although some of them are able to see their family members, the ultimate goal of these boarding schools is to destroy the Uighurs in these children.

According to the report, the Chinese government's strategy is focused more on cultural and national identity destruction than on mass killings. Therefore, it is a typical feature that they put Uyghur cultural and religious institutions, cultural and religious leaders in prisons, and target children who represent the future of the Uyghur nation.

The report also said:

"The campaign against Uyghur children, who represent the future of the Uyghur nation, is particularly cruel. The Chinese government aimed to destroy the Uyghur people by erasing these children's cultural identity and turning them into Chinese-speaking laborers. "These policies against children reinforce the destructive effects of the Chinese government's policies against Uighurs."

Mrs. Rukia said that the actions of the Chinese government violate many international laws, including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which China has signed. He emphasizes the importance of this report from this point of view.

It turns out that the Chinese government publicly raised the slogan of "cutting off the lineage, cutting off the roots, suffocating the connection, and cutting off the source" during the beginning of the genocide targeting the Uyghurs. This situation, in turn, was considered to be an indication that the Uyghur Sabians were an important target of the Uyghur massacre. A new report released this time is widely praised for shedding more light on this grim reality.