The Uyghurs are a Turkic-speaking Muslim ethnic minority group primarily living in China’s northwestern Xinjiang, also known as East Turkistan (the name preferred by the Uyghurs for the region). The Uyghur people have been suffering cultural and ethnic genocide at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since 2017.

China has built an expansive infrastructure of concentration camps and Uyghur slave labor factories. More than two million Uyghurs face “reeducation,” deprivation, torture, sanctioned rape, separation of families, organ harvesting, Uyghur culture eradication, deaths in custody, and suspected extrajudicial killings. Targeting of cultural and religious leaders as well as razing mosques and cemeteries have been widely reported.

JWW advocates along with the international Uyghur diaspora community to raise awareness of the horrific atrocities inflicted on those Uyghurs remaining in China. On January 19, 2021, the U.S. government issued a determination of genocide, but there is much more to be done to stop the atrocities against the Uyghurs from continuing.

Key Facts

• 1-1.8 million Uyghurs are or have been held in concentration camps. Since 2017, at least two million Uyghurs have been separated from their families and forced into “re-education camps.” They are abused, tortured, sterilized, raped, and murdered, sent to concentration camps to be “re-educated,” and forced into slave labor at sweatshops.
• More than 2,000 multinational corporations have been linked to Uyghur slave labor. Industries using Uyghur Forced Labor include Agriculture (Tomatoes, sugar, stevia etc.)  Garment (see cotton below), Automotive, Computer and Cell Phone Technology, Solar Panels and more. Global retailers such as Volkswagen, Apple, BMW, Gap, Nike, Samsung, Sony, and IBM source goods from these factories, many of whom used Jewish slave labor during the Holocaust.
• 20% of the world’s cotton comes from China. China is the largest cotton producer globally, and Xinjiang, home to the Uyghurs, produces 75% of Chinese cotton and 20% of the world’s cotton.
• Nearly 45% of the world’s supply of solar-grade polysilicon used in the manufacturing of most solar panels is manufactured in the Xinjiang region of China by Uyghur forced labor. About 90 Chinese and international companies manufacturing solar panels have supply chains that include Uyghur forced labor.