Uygur women hit hardest by U.S. sanctions on Xinjiang

Urumqi: In a Cantonese cuisine restaurant in a newly-developed area in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwestern China, Uygur cashier Parida Abdukeyum was busy handling diners’ payments and answering phone calls during dinner time, speaking in Mandarin to Han customers and in Uygur to her Uygur co-workers.

The 23-year-old girl comes from Akto, one of the last counties in Xinjiang that were lifted out of absolute poverty in late 2020. She studied in a vocational college in Urumqi and found the job after graduation.

“I like living and working here in Urumqi,” said Parida. “In my hometown, life would be marrying someone in the early twenties and then taking care of children at home.”

“That is the life of some of my childhood friends. They are married. They stay at home without a job, taking care of their children,” she said. “They kind of envy me because I am in a big city, free to live a life that I like.”

Parida is one of the tens of thousands of young Uygur women in Xinjiang who have been pursuing a life of their own wish as socioeconomic progress has brought changes to the Uygur community where people believed women should stay at home instead of pursuing their own career.

To encourage young Uygurs to find a job and create opportunities for them to seek a better life, Xinjiang local governments have been engaged in helping them to be employed in companies either in their hometown or in cities inside and outside Xinjiang.

However, the program was labeled as “forced labor” by the United States, which has in the past two years imposed sanctions on dozens of Chinese companies on the allegations.

Instead of “protecting human rights,” the unilateral sanctions have severely undermined the rights of Uygurs, particularly young Uygur women.

Aminam Tulladin, a 26-year-old girl in Shache, the most populous county in Xinjiang, is among those who lost their income due to the U.S. sanctions.

In 2017, with the help of her vocational high school, Aminam went to work as an intern in a textile company in the eastern Chinese coastal city of Qingdao.

“The first time I got a salary, I was extremely happy as it was earned by my own hand,” said Aminam. “During the internship, sometimes I sent part of my salary back to my family, but most of it was spent for myself on items that girls like, such as clothes and cosmetics.”

What made Aminam even happier was that the company she worked with later set up a plant in her hometown. In March 2018, Aminam became a formal employee of the company, working in its Shache plant.

A skilled worker, Aminam became a section chief in 2019. “At that time, I can keep some of my salary for myself and give the rest to my family, especially for supporting my younger brother’s schooling.”

Just as Aminam and the other several hundred Uygur women were embracing their new life, the company was sanctioned by the U.S. administration for hiring these Uygur women.

Its plant which once created nearly 1,000 jobs for locals in Shache now hires less than 100 workers.

“We didn’t want our employees to bear the cost. We tried our best, but it was much too tough. We used to have a number of European and American customers, but they had since stopped dealing with us for fear of the U.S. sanctions,” said the manager of the Shache plant.

Aminam lost her job and soon after that she got married and had a child. The whole family is supported by her husband, who works as a chef.

“When I was working, I didn’t have to ask for money. For the money I earn by myself, I could spend it as I like. Now of course my husband gives me money, but I don’t feel good,” said Aminam. “I want to earn money by myself. I don’t want to ask for it. I want to return to work.”

Tuersun Aibai, an associate professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Xinjiang University, who previously worked in a village in southern Xinjiang, noted that going for work can help Uygur women have relatively stable wage income, enhance their family status and empower them to live a life of their own wish.

“For a family, the complementarity of economic income between husband and wife is conducive to their enjoyment of equal family status,” the Uygur scholar said. “Meanwhile, working is beneficial for Uygur women to understand modern production technology, lifestyle and concepts, and could promote their awareness of their right to make choice, and enhance their ability to pursue a better life.”

The textile company Aminam once worked with is not the only one plagued with the U.S. sanctions.

Zheng Liang, director of the Institute for Communication and Borderland Governance at Jinan University, who grew up in Urumqi, has studied some cases.

Zheng told Xinhua that a company, whose name he asked not to be disclosed, in the southern province of Guangdong, one of China’s economic powerhouses, had to dismiss several hundred Uygur workers due to economic losses inflicted by the U.S. sanctions.

“Those Uygur workers, most of them women, were so upset when they were told the company could no longer hire them. They had been paid a good salary, much higher than what they could get in their hometowns. They wanted to stay,” Zheng said.

Unilateral sanctions must not be used as a foreign policy tool and means of economic coercion, said an independent UN expert, referring to the U.S. sanctions.

“During my visit I received numerous reports on the unilateral sanctions’ adverse impact and the consequent socioeconomic implications affecting peoples’ lives,” the UN Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights, Alena Douhan, said in May following her 12-day official visit to China.

She said the decline in business activities and the significant loss of global markets caused by the unilateral sanctions led to job losses, with consequent disruptions in social protection schemes, by disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable, particularly in labour-intensive sectors, including women.

“Xinjiang is particularly affected, with key economic sectors and cross-border and international supply chains being disrupted for fear of primary or secondary sanctions for alleged commercial or production ties with this region,” said Douhan, who visited cities in Xinjiang as well as Beijing and Shenzhen, a metropolis in Guangdong.

“I wish to reiterate the illegality of extraterritorial application of unilateral sanctions,” said the expert. “The unilateral sanctions against China do not conform with a broad number of international legal norms and are introduced to apply pressure on the state.”

The Special Rapporteur will present her country visit report to the UN Human Rights Council in September.

Tuersun Aibai said the sanctions were part of the U.S. strategy of “using Xinjiang to contain China” and have seriously infringed upon the rights of enterprises and Uygur workers, “having created forced unemployment.”

“It should be noted that women often find themselves in a disadvantaged position in the job market. The sanctions imposed by the U.S. have caused more challenges for Uygur women, resulting in a decrease in economic income, family status and education level, which is a blatant violation of human rights,” said Tuersun.

Zheng Liang noted the U.S. sanctions had nothing to do with the alleged human rights concerns. The purpose, he said, is to crush Xinjiang’s economy, cause mass unemployment and undermine social stability. Zheng urged sanctioned Chinese companies to take legal actions to defend rights of themselves as well as their Uygur employees.

Hoshine Silicon Industry, a leading Chinese company in silica-based products, which was sanctioned by the United States in mid-2021, has been fighting through legal means.

In February, Hoshine filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security in the U.S. Court of International Trade, requesting the revocation of the Withhold Release Order that has detained its shipments.

Hoshine’s independent subsidiary in Xinjiang has four production bases, with more than 11,000 ethnic minority employees, nearly 60 percent of its local staff.

At Xinjiang Middle Hoshine Silicon Industry’s base in a Urumqi suburb, several ethnic minority employees told Xinhua that they got their jobs through online applications or campus job fairs, slamming the “forced labor” allegations as totally ridiculous.

“My major in the university was polymer material and engineering. I applied for this job on the internet last year because my major matches the position and the company offered good pay,” said test engineer Gulpari Abdursul, a 28-year-old Uygur woman. “Nobody was forced to work here. We are very angry about those rumors.”

Adilijiang Alimu, a Uygur graduate from an engineering college in eastern China, who is now in charge of the green plants at the base, said he first learned about the company due to its giant production base in his homet