Country: China

Group: Hui

Date Finalized: 12/4/20

Team: Nusrat Nijum (lead), Rayna Castillo, Abi Pentecost

Content Warning: kidnapping, slavery

Approximate Time Period: 1800-present

There is a large amount of evidence to support that the Hui have endured forced labor. The Hui is a large Muslim ethnic group consisting of 10 million people (Feng, 2019; Lei, 2010). In the 19th century, he Hui were kidnapped by the traders from the Khanate of Khokand, a state that is in place of Uzbekistan/Kyrgyzstan today (Clarence-Smith, 2006). There are additional instances of forced labor reported with China creating internment camps for Muslims to do work in (Cranston, 2020), with over 2 million Muslims experiencing a wide range of human rights abuses (Cranston, 2020).  The Anti-Slavery International (2020) reported “Systematic forced labour, affecting factories and farms across the region and China, makes up a key part of the Chinese government’s system of control.” The Hui are more spread out in China compared to the Uyghers which translate to them being more assimilated thus not being viewed as big a threat as the Uyghers (Feng, 2019). We rated data quality as a 2 because there is ample evidence for forced labor of Muslims, but less specific evidence for Hui.

Sources

  1. Clarence-Smith, W. G. (2006). Islam and the abolition of slavery. Oxford University Press.
  2. Cranston, C. (2020, July 23). Why companies must act to end abuses of the Uyghur people in China in their supply chains. Anti-Slavery International. https://www.antislavery.org/uyghur-people-supply-chains/
  3. Feng, E. (2019, September 26). ‘Afraid We Will Become The Next Xinjiang’: China’s Hui Muslims Face Crackdown. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2019/09/26/763356996/afraid-we-will-become-the-next-xinjiang-chinas-hui-muslims-face-crackdown
  4. Lei, W. (2010). The Chinese Islamic “Goodwill Mission to the Middle East” during the anti-Japanese war. Dîvân: Journal Of Interdisciplinary Studies.