(TibetanReview.net, Jan23’26) – UN rights experts have on Jan 22 expressed deep concern stemming from allegations of forced labour affecting Uyghur, Kazakh and Kyrgyz minority groups as well as Tibetans in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and across other parts of the People’s Republic of China. In the case of Tibetans, they have said the policy not only devastatingly affects their livelihood but also threatens their cultural identity and way of life.
Referring to a persistent pattern of alleged State-imposed forced labour involving ethnic minorities across multiple provinces in China, the experts have said, “In many cases, the coercive elements are so severe that they may amount to forcible transfer and/or enslavement as a crime against humanity.”
Noting that forced labour in China is enabled through the State-mandated “poverty alleviation through labour transfer” programme in the case of Xinjiang, the experts have said Tibetans are also subjected to forced labour through similar schemes such as the Training and Labour Transfer Action Plan, which involves systematic training and transfer of “rural surplus labourers.”
These policies are stated to justify coercive methods such as military-style vocational training methods.
The experts, consisting of four Special Rapporteurs and a Working Group, have said the number of Tibetans affected by labour transfers in 2024 are estimated to be close to 650,000.
The experts have also expressed alarm over the fact that Tibetans are also reportedly displaced through the “whole-village relocation” programme which applies coercion to manufacture consent, such as repeated home visits, implicit threats of punishment, banning of criticism, or threats of cutting essential home services.
“Between 2000 and 2025 some 3.36 million Tibetans have been affected by government programmes requiring them to rebuild their house for nomads to become sedentary, whilst official statistics say that around 930,000 rural Tibetans have been relocated through either whole village relocation or individual household relocations,” the experts have said.
And they have warned, “The labour transfers are part of a government policy to forcibly re-engineer Uyghur, other minorities and Tibetans’ cultural identities under the guise of poverty alleviation.”
The experts have said China’s policy displaces Tibetans from the safety of their traditional agricultural and nomadic way of life and puts them at the mercy of uncertain market forces in alien environments.
“Labour and land transfers forcibly change their agriculture-based or nomadic traditional livelihoods by displacing them to locations where they have no choice but to pursue wage labour…. Consequently, their language, chosen communities, ways of life, as well as cultural and religious practices are eroded, which causes irreparable harm and loss.”
Given the fact that goods produced through forced labour enter global supply chains indirectly via third countries, the experts have urged investors and businesses operating and sourcing from China to conduct human rights due diligence in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights by taking the supply-chain related risks into consideration.
China has expectedly condemned the report, with its Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun claiming Jan 23 that the experts had been misled by what he called anti-China forces.
The experts are: Tomoya Obokata, Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences; Alexandra Xanthaki, Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights; Ashwini KP, Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance; Siobhán Mullally, Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children; Damilola Olawuyi (Chairperson), Robert McCorquodale (Vice-Chairperson), Fernanda Hopenhaym, Lyra Jakulevičienė and Pichamon Yeophantong, Working Group on business and human rights.
Special Rapporteurs/Independent Experts/Working Groups are independent human rights experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council, Geneva. Together, these experts are referred to as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council.