Uighur women subjected to systematic rape in China internment camps, witnesses claim

Workers walk by the perimeter fence of what is officially known as a vocational skills education centre in Dabancheng in 2018

Credit: Thomas Peter/Reuters

Uighur women held at internment camps in China’s Xinjiang province have been subject to systematic mass rape, former prisoners and staff have claimed.

Two former prisoners and two teachers who had worked at what the Chinese government calls “vocational and educational training centres” described a "culture" of gang rape and sexual torture in interviews with the BBC. 

The UN estimates more than one million ethnic Uighur and Kazakh men and women have been detained in a network of camps China built in its far-western Xinjiang Province since 2014.

Chinese officials deny allegations of mistreatment and say camps are educational facilities designed to combat religious extremism and terrorism among the predominantly Muslim Uighur minority.

In March 2019, the Telegraph spoke to eight former detainees who described a regime of systematic torture and forced labour. There have also been reports of forced sterilisations. 

The US, UK and other foreign governments have repeatedly called on China to close the camps. 

The latest testimony contains the most detailed accounts to date of sexual torture.

Tursunay Ziawudun, an ethnic Uighur woman who sought refuge in the United States after her release, said women were removed from cells “every night” to be raped by one or more men in masks. She herself was raped on three separate occasions.

She said: “They were three men, not one, three! They did whatever evil their mind could think of. And they didn’t spare any part of the body, biting it to the extent that it was disgusting to look at. They didn’t just rape, they were barbaric, they had bitten all over the body.”

Sayragul Sauytbay, a teacher who worked in one camp, said she witnessed prison guards gang rape a young woman in front of other prisoners after compelling her to make a forced confession

Another former prisoner said she was forced to prepare women for rape by stripping them and handcuffing them.

The Chinese Embassy in London did not immediately respond to requests to comment, but said to the BBC:

“The Chinese government attaches great importance to protecting women’s rights. The so-called ‘forced sterilization’ of Uyghur women is completely unfounded. The Chinese government protects the rights and interests of all ethnic minorities equally”.

“Lies and absurd accusations, concluding ‘forced sterilization’ and ‘mass detention’, do not hold water”.