Advertisement
Exposing China’s atrocities on its citizens, a United States report has revealed that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its state-owned enterprises often force citizens to work in “horrendous conditions” on Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects.
Owing to China’s consistent pattern of forced labor, the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report 2020 by the US has placed China in the Tier-3 [lowest ranking] category for the third consecutive year.
Unveiling the annual report, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said, “Our Trafficking in Persons Report calls out a group of nations with a state-sponsored pattern of forced labor. Among them is China, where the CCP and its state-owned enterprises often forcing citizens to work in horrendous conditions on Belt and Road project.”
The report consists of Tier-1, Tier-2, Tier-2 watch list and Tier-3 category. The countries who comply with the minimum standards set for keeping control over human trafficking are placed in Tier-1. Those countries who don’t meet the standards fully but are making significant efforts to comply with the standards are kept in Tier-2 category.
Since 2017, the US has placed China in Tier-3 category, as the CCP regime “does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so”.
The TIP report said: “Despite the lack of significant efforts, the government took some steps to address trafficking, including by prosecuting and convicting some traffickers and by continuing to cooperate with international authorities to address forced and fraudulent marriages in the PRC, a key trafficking vulnerability for foreign women and girls.”
However, during the reporting period, the US administration states that there was a government policy or pattern of widespread forced labor, including through the continued mass arbitrary detention of more than one million Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, ethnic Kyrgyz and other Muslims in Xinjiang.
The report recommends that China should “cease the use of harassment, threats and illegal discriminatory immigration policies as measures to coerce the return to Xinjiang and subsequent forced labor of ethnic and religious minorities living abroad.”
Comment here