The Uyghurs in China’s western province of Xinjiang, China, are targeted for extinction, elimination, erasure as a people.  How does an entire group cease to exist? 

One strategy is through preventing births.  The Chinese Communist Party, the CCP, has implemented a procedure of forced sterilization and birth control.  According to a recent AP report, “The state regularly subjects minority women to pregnancy checks, and forces intrauterine devices, sterilization, and even abortion on hundreds of thousands. The population control measures are backed by mass detention as both a punishment and a threat for failure to comply.”1 

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Another strategy is through forced marriage to Han people, thereby preventing the birth of children from Uyghur couples.  In 2010, the CCP began a program in Tibet to incentivize Tibetan intermarriage.  The policies extended to the Uyghurs in 2014 and have increased considerably in recent years.2  Campaigns include videos on social media and the threat of incarceration and actual detention for those who refuse, who are then labeled as terrorists.   

A third strategy is to limit the number of children that Uyghur people may have.  In June 2021, the CCP expanded to three the number of children that families may have.3 Experts questioned why China didn’t scrap birth caps entirely. The reason is likely due to strictly enforced family planning policies in Xinjiang: Uyghurs in the U.S. diaspora report that their relatives who remain in China and who have multiple children face harassment, economic penalties, and punishments such as revocation of passports and other vital documents. 

From 2015 to 2018, the Uyghur birthrate in Xinjiang fell by 60% compared to a 10% nationwide decrease. Birth rates in Xinjiang fell a further 24% in 2019 compared to 4% nationwide.4 

Finally, a group is erased when there are no children to carry on its culture, language, and traditions.  During the Holocaust, fully one of every four of the six million Jews who perished was a child, with the intention to annihilate the future of the Jews as a people. 

At least a million adult Uyghurs are forcibly incarcerated in detention camps. Their children, estimated to be several hundred thousand, have been taken away and are housed in ‘boarding schools,’ where they are forced to use the Chinese language, abandon their spiritual practices, and are unable to have contact with any family members.  According to Human Rights Watch, “We remain deeply concerned about practices in these facilities that appear to deny children their basic rights and cultural heritage.”5 

These actions have been described as forced assimilation, ethnocide, cultural genocide, or genocide.