{"id":4303,"date":"2018-10-27T11:52:47","date_gmt":"2018-10-27T11:52:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iuhrdf.org\/en\/2018\/10\/27\/china-treats-uighur-kids-orphans-after-parents-seized\/"},"modified":"2018-10-27T11:52:47","modified_gmt":"2018-10-27T11:52:47","slug":"china-treats-uighur-kids-orphans-after-parents-seized","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/china-treats-uighur-kids-orphans-after-parents-seized\/","title":{"rendered":"China treats Uighur kids as \u2018orphans\u2019 after parents seized"},"content":{"rendered":"

ISTANBUL \u2014 Every morning, <\/span>Meripet<\/span> wakes up to her nightmare: The Chinese government has turned four of her children into orphans, even though she and their father are alive.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meripet<\/span> and her husband left the kids with their grandmother at home in China when they went to nurse Meripet\u2019s sick father in Turkey. But after Chinese authorities started locking up thousands of their fellow ethnic Uighurs for alleged subversive crimes such as travel abroad, a visit became <\/span>exile<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Then, her mother-in-law was also taken <\/span>prisoner<\/span>, and <\/span>Meripet<\/span> learned from a friend that her 3- to 8-year-olds had been placed in a de facto orphanage in the Xinjiang region, under the care of the state that broke up her family.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like my kids are in jail,\u201d <\/span>Meripet<\/span> said, her voice cracking. \u201cMy four children are separated from me and living like orphans.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Meripet\u2019s family is among tens of thousands swept up in President Xi Jinping\u2019s campaign to subdue a sometimes restive region, including the internment of more than 1 million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities that has alarmed a United Nations panel and the U.S. government. Now there is evidence that the government is placing the children of detainees and exiles into dozens of orphanages across Xinjiang.<\/span><\/p>\n

The orphanages are the latest example of how China is systematically distancing young Muslims in Xinjiang from their families and culture, The Associated Press has found through interviews with 15 Muslims and a review of procurement documents. The government has been building thousands of so-called \u201cbilingual\u201d schools, where minority children are taught in Mandarin and penalized for speaking in their native tongues. Some of these are boarding schools, which Uighurs say can be mandatory for children and, in a Kazakh family\u2019s case, start from the age of 5.<\/span><\/p>\n

China says the orphanages help disadvantaged children, and it denies the existence of internment camps for their parents. It prides itself on investing millions of yuan in education in Xinjiang to steer people out of poverty and away from terrorism. At a regular news briefing Thursday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the measures taken in Xinjiang were necessary for \u201cstability, development, harmony\u201d and to fight ethnic separatists.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Uighurs fear that these measures are essentially wiping out their ethnic identity, one child at a time. Experts say what China is doing echoes how white colonialists in the U.S., Canada <\/span>and<\/span> Australia treated indigenous children \u2014 policies that have left generations traumatized.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an ethnic group whose knowledge base is being erased,\u201d said Darren Byler, a researcher of Uighur culture at <\/span>University<\/span> of Washington. \u201cWhat we\u2019re looking at is something like a settler colonial situation where an entire generation is lost.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For <\/span>Meripet<\/span>, the loss is agony; it is the absence of her children and the knowledge they are in state custody. A year and a half after leaving home, the 29-year-old mother looked at a photo of a brightly painted building surrounded by barbed wire where her children are believed to be held. She fell silent. And then she wept.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I finally see them again, will they even recognize me?\u201d she asked. \u201cWill I recognize them?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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