The Chinese government is committing possible crimes against humanity and genocide by systematically persecuting Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim and/or Turkic groups. Other religious and ethnic minority groups also face persecution.

BACKGROUND:

China has perpetrated repressive campaigns against religious and ethnic minorities for several decades. Under the guise of combating religious extremism, Chinese authorities have imposed numerous discriminatory regulations and repressive campaigns, particularly in the so-called Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (the Uyghur Region), increasing persecution against the ethnic Uyghur community, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other predominantly Muslim and/or Turkic groups. A campaign in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (Tibet) has also repressed Tibetan Buddhists. In 2016 the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) codified and intensified these efforts by enacting a policy of “Sinicization,” requiring religious groups to align their doctrines, customs and morality with Han Chinese culture and CCP ideology.

Abuses in the Uyghur Region significantly escalated in 2017 when authorities passed the “Regulation on De-extremification,” which imposed severe restrictions on religious freedom and practice, including bans on praying, growing beards or playing Uyghur music. In February 2024 China expanded these regulations, increasing local surveillance and tightening control over religious education and places of worship. In recent years, this crackdown has expanded beyond the Uyghur Region, with authorities destroying and repurposing mosques and other Islamic venues in Ningxia and Gansu – home to the largest Muslim populations in China outside the Uyghur Region. UN experts have warned that the Chinese government has exponentially increased policies that allow for the forcible separation and assimilation of Uyghur, Tibetan and other minority children to state-run orphanages or boarding schools. The CCP has also engaged in reprisals against human rights defenders cooperating with the UN system, such as following China’s Universal Periodic Review.

Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim and/or Turkic groups face mass arbitrary detention, often accompanied by widespread rape, sexual abuse and torture, as well as coercive campaigns to reduce birth rates through forced abortions and sterilizations. Over 500,000 Uyghurs have been detained in prisons or detention centers across the region, where at least 380 suspected facilities have been identified as of September 2020. While mass detention camps likely remain in operation, the CCP is increasingly relying on its expansive labor transfer programs, some of which function as involuntary and indefinite forms of internment. In May 2025 a joint civil society investigation found that China’s labor transfer system is more widespread than previously understood, with some Uyghur workers relocated over 2,000 miles from the region. In a statement released in January 2026, UN experts reported that official Chinese planning documents show Xinjiang’s five-year plan (2021 to 2025) projected 13.75 million instances of labor transfers. The actual figures are likely much higher.

Uyghur forced labor has been documented across a variety of sectors and industries, including textiles, technology, solar and automotive, with over 100 international brands implicated. The governments of Canada, the United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union (EU) have sanctioned Chinese government officials and taken steps to ban goods tied to Uyghur forced labor. The United States (US) government’s Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act prevents the import of goods made “in whole or in part” in the Uyghur Region. While these actions have limited imports from certain industries, enforcement gaps in complex supply chains and weak regulations still enable exports to the US and Europe.

The parliaments of Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, the EU, France, Lithuania, the Netherlands and the UK, as well as the US State Department have recognized the situation in the Uyghur Region as constituting genocide and/or crimes against humanity.

In August 2022 the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released a report on the human rights crisis in the Uyghur Region, determining that the extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention may constitute crimes against humanity, with conditions remaining in place for serious human rights violations to continue. In November 2022 the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) referred the situation to the Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect (OSAPG).

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS:

Ongoing developments indicate growing tension between economic engagement with China and longstanding concerns around forced labor and systemic repression. In 2026 Canada and the EU are exploring adjustments to trade frameworks with China affecting electric vehicles and clean technology – sectors previously implicated in forced labor.

These trade dynamics are unfolding against the backdrop of sustained international scrutiny of China’s labor practices by UN Special Procedures. On 22 January 2026 five UN Special Rapporteurs expressed grave concern over persistent allegations of forced labor affecting Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Tibetan communities in the Uyghur Region and elsewhere in China, noting that the severity of coercion in some cases may amount to the crimes against humanity of forcible transfer and/or enslavement. Reports from Special Rapporteurs and others also highlighted how official rhetoric – from “poverty alleviation” and “surplus labour transfer” to “economic revitalization” and “skills training” – obscures coercion and makes forced labor increasingly difficult to detect in supply chains.

At the same time, reporting by media and civil society has underscored how advances in digital technologies, including artificial intelligence, are reinforcing systems of repression. These tools are increasingly used not only to monitor and control targeted communities within China, but also to extend surveillance and intimidation beyond its borders.

ANALYSIS:

The widespread and systematic persecution of Uyghurs and other religious and ethnic minorities, including enforced disappearances, forcible transfers, large-scale detention, torture, violations of bodily autonomy – such as forced sterilization and forced organ harvesting – sexual violence and denial of information regarding the fate of persons in state custody, likely constitutes crimes against humanity. The Chinese government also appears to be intentionally perpetrating at least four acts prohibited under Article II of the Genocide Convention: “imposing measures intended to prevent births”; “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group”; “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”; and “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

China’s systematic destruction of cultural heritage erases the history and identity of Uyghurs and other groups. Expanded detention and labor facilities, increased restrictions on religious practices and the implementation of mass surveillance have transformed the Uyghur Region into a de facto police state. Many of the same systemic violations, including increased securitization, surveillance, the forced separation and assimilation of children and political “re-education,” were first developed by China in Tibet and continue there today.

The Chinese government’s “labor transfer” and “vocational training” programs are part of a coercive and exploitative campaign of forced labor aimed at monitoring and indoctrinating Uyghurs and Tibetans, undermining their religious, linguistic and cultural identity. Expanded access for Chinese-manufactured goods could intersect with longstanding forced labor risks in supply chains, highlighting the challenge of balancing economic engagement with human rights due diligence.

RISK ASSESSMENT:

• • • Dangerous rhetoric used by the Chinese government to depict Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim and/or Turkic groups as terrorists.
    • A history of institutionalized discrimination targeting religious and ethnic minorities.
    • Widespread or systematic practices and acts of violence against the lives, freedoms or physical and moral integrity of protected groups, including state policies that indicate an intent to erase and/or forcibly assimilate populations in the Uyghur Region and Tibet.
    • Attacks against or the destruction of homes, farms, businesses or other livelihoods of a protected group and/or of their cultural or religious symbols and property.
    • Repressive measures and likely atrocity crimes disproportionately perpetrated against women.

NECESSARY ACTION:

The government of China should cease ongoing systematic repression of Uyghurs and other religious and ethnic minorities, the practice of forced labor, the forced separation of minority children and the deliberate destruction of cultural heritage, as well as repeal the “Regulation on De-extremification.” All recommendations by OHCHR should be implemented.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Muslim-majority countries and neighboring states should urge China to cease persecution of Uyghurs and other targeted groups. All UN member states should strengthen, expand and reinforce regulations to identify and ban all goods tied to forced labor in China.

Relevant UN officials, including the High Commissioner, should prioritize monitoring the region and provide regular information to member states, including an update to the 2022 report. Member states should work towards formalizing public discussions at the Human Rights Council on ongoing atrocity crimes in the Uyghur Region and engage with OSAPG on tangible next steps regarding the CERD referral.

For more on the Global Centre’s advocacy work on the situation in China, see our China country advocacy page.