Country: China

Group: Kazak

Date: 11/28/2020

Team: Alexa Hager (lead), Arisha Khan, Thomas Chia

Content Warning: Internment; forced assimilation; forced medical procedures

Approximate Time Period: 2017-present

The Kazak in China have faced forced labor while in Chinese internment camps in recent times.  The Kazak and Uighurs, both Xinjiang based groups, seem to be those forced into the camps in most cases.  This very well could still be going on today, although detailed information about labor in the camp comes from 2018. 

Originally a Turkic ethnic group, the Kazak first came to China around 1916 and are officially recognized as one of the 56 ethnic groups in the country today (Sydykova, 2016).  The Kazakhs first came to China was to escape the Russian invaders (Sydykova, 2016).  Along with the Uighurs, who also heavily reside in the Xinjiang region of China, thousands of Kazakhs have been placed into forced labor camps as late as 2018.  In this camp, it is said that citizens are forced to give blood, learn Chinese and Communist Party songs, and are regularly interrogated (Toleukhanova, 2019). The government have stated that the internment camps are providing job training, putting detainees on production line for their own good, offering freedom from poverty, and rescuing them from temptations of radical Islam (Buckley & Ramzy, 2018). The Chinese government have been reported to have detained more than 1 million ethnic Muslim minorities, which includes Kazakhs. This rapid buildup to 1 million detainees is due to an increase in police officer recruitment. Police officers are often recruited from the same ethnic groups that are detained, dividing ethnic groups and causing instability (Ramzy, 2019). The people who are forced to work in these factories make less than minimum wage. A particular Kazak citizen who escaped the camp and is now in Kazakhstan today said that the spent many long hours sewing gloves for an incredibly low wage in the camp (Toleukhanova, 2019). One estimate is that 2,500 ethnic Kazaks were being held in the camp during 2018 for indoctrination (Toleukhanova, 209).

The Kazakhs have undergone forced labor in China in recent years. We rated the data quality a 3/3 because of the large amount of information about the conditions that Kazakhs face in the internment camps.

Sources

  1. Sydykova, Zamira (2016). “Commemorating the 1916 Massacres in Kyrgyzstan? Russia Sees a Western Plot”. The Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst.Hays, J. (2015a). EWENKI AND THEIR HISTORY | Facts and Details. http://factsanddetails.com/china/cat5/sub88/entry-4360.html
  2. Toleukhanova, R. S., Aigerim. (2019). Kazakhs Won’t Be Silenced on China’s Internment Camps. Foreign Policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/03/04/961387-concentrationcamps-china-xinjiang-internment-kazakh-muslim/
  3. Buckley, C., & Ramzy, A. (2018, December 16). China’s Detention Camps for Muslims Turn to Forced Labor (Published 2018). The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/16/world/asia/xinjiang-china-forced-labor-camps-uighurs.html
  4. Ramzy, A. (2019, March 2). He Needed a Job. China Gave Him One: Locking Up His Fellow Muslims. (Published 2019). The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/02/world/asia/china-muslim-detention-uighur-kazakh.html