REMEMBERING UYGHUR WOMEN DURING “BEIJING + 15” AND BEYOND:

RALLY for Uyghur women’s rights during the 15-year review and appraisal being conducted at the
United Nations in NY in March 2010 of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (adopted at the Fourth Women’s Conference, Beijing, 1995).

Come to a RALLY to raise international awareness of the plight of the Uyghur people of East Turkestan (also known as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China), with a spotlight on the human rights violations to which the Chinese government specifically subjects Uyghur women and girls. These include: the widespread use of threats, intimidation, and deception to conscript primarily young Uyghur women and girls to participate in a labor transfer program to eastern China, where they face abusive and poor working and living conditions; and the subjection of Uyghur women to particularly intense religious repression, forced abortions and sterilizations, and blatant employment discrimination on the basis of both ethnicity and gender.

Date/Time: Tuesday, March 9, 2010, 12:30 pm – 2:30 pm

Location: Dag Hammarskjold Plaza/Park, E. 47th Street and 1st Avenue, New York, NY (across the street from the United Nations)

Directions: Dag Hammarskjold Plaza/Park is walking distance from the Grand Central Terminal/subway station. Take the 4, 5, 6, or 7 trains to Grand Central or the Shuttle (S) to Grand Central from Times Square.

Organized by: The Uyghur American Association (www.uyghuramerican.org) and the International Uyghur Human Rights & Democracy Foundation (www.iuhrdf.org)

Background

From March 1-12, 2010, the UN Commission on the Status of Women will conduct a 15-year review and appraisal of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which was adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China in September 1995. Fifteen years on, the host of that historic conference continues to blatantly violate the basic human rights of the Uyghur women of East Turkestan (also known as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region), as well as of women all over China. China continues to show utter disregard for the principles espoused in the treatise that bears the name of its capital city – the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

In addition to being subjected to the intense and often brutal political, religious, and cultural repression to which Uyghurs in general are subjected at the hands of the Chinese government, Uyghur women are victimized by the Chinese government in ways that include the following. While the Chinese government recruits Han Chinese from other parts of the PRC to take jobs in East Turkestan, the authorities use intimidation, threats, and deception to recruit primarily young, marriage-age Uyghur women, as well as Uyghur girls, from predominantly Uyghur areas of East Turkestan, to participate in a labor transfer program to eastern China, where the participants are subjected to abusive and poor working and living conditions. Thousands of young Uyghur women and girls have been uprooted from their communities and families under this program and transferred to eastern China. Uyghur women in East Turkestan are subjected to intense and blatant discrimination in employment, both because they are Uyghur and because they are women.

Uyghur women are also the victims of the Chinese government’s coercive family planning policies,
including forced abortions and sterilizations.

Furthermore, against the backdrop of the authorities’ intense repression of all Uyghurs’ religious practice and independent expressions of ethnicity, the authorities have targeted specific repressive measures towards women, including the imposition of limits on women’s access to mosques and efforts by local governments in East Turkestan to prevent Uyghur women from wearing head scarves and to politically train or regulate the activities of Uyghur female religious figures (known as bu¨ wi in Uyghur).

For more information about the rally, please contact: Kathy Polias, United Nations Liaison for the
Uyghur American Association, Tel.: 347-285-6546, E-mail: kpolias@uyghuramerican.org.