The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials have recently admitted that birth rates have dropped nearly one-third in the Uyghur population. The Uyghurs are an ethnic minority group from the northwest of China. Many of them are recognized to be native to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, which is near Turkey. It has been claimed by many that Beijing is forcing its Uyghurs to be put under birth control. These confirmations by the Chinese officials only add to the fire.

Since 2017, the CCP has been reportedly detaining an estimate of three million Muslim Uyghurs without trial, into the twenty-first century’s largest mass human internment. China’s campaign against the minority Uyghur population is a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Uyghur family members are left worried when one of their loved ones suddenly disappears due to being detained in the internment camps without notice. 

A woman named Rushan Abbas shares that she “spoke about the conditions of the camps on Sept. 5, 2018, at the Hudson Institute. Six days later, my sister and my aunt both disappeared at the same day,” due to her activism for Uyghur human rights in the U.S.

Human rights groups say that the internment camps “are used to eradicate Uyghur culture, in tandem with forced abortion and sterilization policies that amount to demographic genocide.” 

Classified government documents obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists revealed camps as involuntary indoctrination centers with high watchtowers, constant camera surveillance, harsh punishments, and dedicated police bases to prevent escapes. 

One of the harsh punishments the CCP endorses in these internment camps includes efforts prohibiting more Uyghurs’ birth. The story of one mother of three entails that during her time imprisoned at the internment camps, Xinjiang officials would threaten her to serve extra time if she did not comply with receiving sterilization. 

Since the internment camps began in 2017, the region’s birth rate has plummeted from 15.88 per 1,000 people to 10.69 per 1,000 people in 2018. These statistics, confirmed by the CCP, ultimately have decreased roughly one-third from previous years, or the equivalent to 40,000 Uyghur babies. 

Interestingly, the Xinjiang officials denied having birth-control policies tailored for a “single ethnic minority.” 

Similarly, Beijing claims that the decrease in numbers is attributed to the family planning policies that are now being enforced for the first time. Contrarily to these claims by Chinese officials, critics say that Uyghur women are threatened with detention at times if they give birth to over two children. Some Uyghur women have also been forced with medications in these internment camps that prohibit them from menstruating. Additionally, specific medications were also implanted against their will with intrauterine devices that prohibit them from further pregnancies.

Furthermore, Adrian Zenz at Washington’s Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, who is acknowledged for his research on Xinjiang, proclaims that a fall in natural birth rate would gradually occur over the span of five years or a decade. 

Ultimately, Zenz questions the officials’ claims that women requested the treatment voluntarily, or gave consent to be sterilized, reasoning that it was unlikely that “17 times more women spontaneously wanted to be sterilized.”

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