For example, French President Emmanuel Macron visited China in November 2019 but made no public mention of human rights. Chinese companies are not the only ones selling these abusive systems—others include companies from Germany, Israel, and the United Kingdom—but China’s affordable packages make them attractive to governments that want to emulate its surveillance model. [7], Article 244 of the Criminal Law prohibits forced labor, which is punishable by no more than three years’ imprisonment or criminal detention and a fine. work, sale and profitable adoption of babies and human smuggling. For every Lee Kwan Yew, the late Singaporean leader who is often mentioned by proponents of autocratic rule, there are many more—Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt, Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, or Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea—who led their country to ruin. [20] Quanguo Daguai Fanguai Peixunban Zai Hulunbei’er Juban [National Combating-and-Anti-Trafficking Workshop Held in Hulunbei’er], Supreme People’s Court of the PRC (July 28, 2010), http://courtapp.chinacourt.org/shenpan-xiangqing-1357.html, archived at https://perma.cc/BE3F-26SU. [8], According to paragraph 1 of article 358 as newly revised by the Ninth Amendment, organizing prostitution or forced prostitution is punishable by five to ten years’ imprisonment and a fine. At UN headquarters in New York, a major Chinese government priority has been to avoid discussion of its conduct in Xinjiang. Universities in particular should provide a space where students and scholars from China can learn about and criticize the Chinese government without fear of being monitored or reported. That led to the convenient fiction that there was no need to press Beijing about its repression; it was sufficient to trade with it. The detentions have created countless “orphans”—children whose parents are in custody—who are now held in schools and state-run orphanages where they, too, are subjected to indoctrination. Consumers would be better placed to insist that these institutions not succumb to Chinese censorship as the price to obtain Chinese business, and that they should never benefit from or contribute to Chinese abuses. In September, as 3 million civilians faced indiscriminate bombing by Russian and Syrian jets, China joined Russia to veto a Security Council demand for a truce. We self-police ourselves…. The conventional wisdom once held that as China grew economically, it would build a middle class that would demand its rights. Ethnic and religious minorities face severe persecution. Small steps toward the rule of law have been replaced by the Communist Party’s traditional rule by law. Even when it comes to economic rights, Beijing wants no independent assessment of its progress because that would require examining not its preferred indicator—the growth in gross domestic product—but measures such as how the least favored in China are faring, including persecuted minorities and those left behind in rural areas. However, victims of commercial sexual exploitation are reportedly punished for engaging in prostitution, an activity that is illegal in China. In other cases, students from China who want to join campus debates on ideas that would be taboo at home feel they cannot for fear of being reported to Chinese authorities. Over generations this policy drove a demographic disaster: China now has 30 to 40 million more men than women. [22]  Through the COMMIT, the six governments of the Greater Mekong Sub-region (Cambodia, China, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam) are committed to a response to human trafficking, highlighting the need for multilateral, bilateral, and government-NGO cooperation to fight human trafficking.[23]. Now China intimidates other governments, insisting that they applaud it in international forums and join its attacks on the international human rights system. Rising to this challenge demands a radical break from the dominant complacency and business-as-usual approach. Some governments—including those of Bangladesh, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, and Sierra Leone—have begun backing away from BRI projects because they do not look economically sensible. With that sensitivity in mind, companies seeking to do business with China often silence themselves and their employees even without an edict from Beijing. However, this is a truly international crime, with potential victims from over 80 different countries referred to the [15] Zhongguo Fandui Guaimai Renkou Xingdong Jihua (2013–2020) [China National Plan of Action on Combating Trafficking in Persons (2013–2020)] (2013–2020 National Action Plan), http://www.gov.cn/zwgk/2013-03/08/content_2349019.htm, archived at https://perma.cc/V4KZ-MF4J. If they are attentive to Saudi or Russian efforts to buy legitimacy, why not similar Chinese efforts? 2. Sex trafficking victims in the country are from all ethnic groups in Vietnam and foreigners. Yet even against this disturbing backdrop, the Chinese government stands out for the reach and influence of its anti-rights efforts. For example, Beijing has been clear that it will not tolerate pressure on Myanmar, despite a UN fact-finding mission’s conclusion that Myanmar’s top military leaders should be investigated and prosecuted for genocide. To be sure, the Chinese government and Communist Party are not today’s only threats to human rights, as the Human Rights Watch World Report shows. This inconsistency makes it easier for China to claim that concerns expressed about its human rights record are a matter of politics rather than principle. A nightmarish system has already been built in Xinjiang, the northwestern region that is home both to some 13 million Muslims—Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other Turkic minorities—and to the most intrusive public monitoring system the world has ever known. Nationally, public policy and media attention demonstrate efforts to expand the recognition of and response to human trafficking (Francino-Olsen, 2019). Human trafficking in China is a lucrative international 1. References have been found to various training programs related to the COMMIT: Prepared by Laney Zhang The staged exhibition was often so preposterous as to be self-refuting, as when a group of inmates was forced to sing, in English, the children’s song “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands!”. China does not meet the minimum requirement of standards necessary to combat the rise of human trafficking. When China’s human rights record came up for a routine review in 2018 and 2019 at the Human Rights Council, Chinese officials threatened critical delegations while encouraging allies to heap praise. Their job is to scrutinize and report “problems” such as people who pray or show other signs of active adherence to the Islamic faith, who contact family members abroad, or who display anything less than absolute fealty to the Communist Party. History of Slavery and Trafficking in Persons. Effectively combating these crimes requires a comprehensive and coordinated response to prosecute human … If they encourage debates about human rights violations by Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or Venezuela, why not by China? More fundamentally, UN member states and senior officials should defend the United Nations as an independent voice on human rights. References have also been found to various training programs related to COMMIT, an anti-trafficking initiative involving Cambodia, China, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam. For example, after the Houston Rockets general manager irked the Chinese government by tweeting his support for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protesters, all of the National Basketball Association’s 11 official Chinese business partners—including a travel website, a milk producer, and a fast-food chain—suspended ties with the league. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has been unwilling to publicly demand an end to China’s mass detention of Turkic Muslims, while heaping praise on Beijing’s economic prowess and the BRI. 5. Human Rights Watch defends the rights of people in 90 countries worldwide, spotlighting abuses and bringing perpetrators to justice, Human Rights Watch is a 501(C)(3) nonprofit registered in the US under EIN: 13-2875808, China’s Template for Prosperous Dictatorship, Two Years After #MeToo Erupts, A New Treaty Anchors Workplace Shifts, Holding Companies to Account: Momentum Builds for Corporate Human Rights Duties, As Killer Robots Loom, Demands Grow to Keep Humans in Control of Use of Force, Shutting Down the Internet to Shut Up Critics, With Millions Out of School, the Countdown Begins to Get All Children into Quality, Accessible Education, Going to the Bank for Food, Not Money: The Growing Reality of Hunger in “Rich” Countries. Although China is the driving force behind this global assault on human rights, it has willing accomplices. The question to ask of dignitaries visiting Beijing who claim to discuss China’s human rights record is whether the people of China—the main engine of change—can hear them. Xi has emerged as the most powerful leader of China since Mao Zedong, building a shameless cult of personality, removing presidential term limits, promoting “Xi Jinping thought,” and advancing grandiose visions for a powerful, yet autocratic, nation. Beyond issuing statements, governments that are committed to human rights should redouble cross-regional outreach efforts with a view to presenting a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council establishing a fact-finding mission, so the world can know what is happening in Xinjiang. Fulfilling a ... China and Eastern Europe. No other government is simultaneously detaining a million members of an ethnic minority for forced indoctrination and attacking anyone who dares to challenge its repression. Human trafficking of women and children up to the age of 14 is currently criminalised under Article 240, but this does not extend to men, and to that effect to boys over the age of 14. No Chinese business can afford to ignore the dictates of the Communist Party, so when word comes down to punish a country for its criticism of Beijing—for example, by not purchasing its goods—the company has no choice but to comply. The Palgrave International Handbook of Human Trafficking is divided into eight key sections: 1. Unless we want to return to an era in which people are pawns to be manipulated or discarded according to the whims of their overlords, the Chinese government’s attack on the international human rights system must be resisted. Knowing that in the absence of elections, the party’s legitimacy depends largely on a growing economy, Chinese leaders worry that slowing economic growth will increase demands from the public for more say in how it is governed. As a result, Beijing faces the uneasy task of managing a huge and complex economy without the public input and debate that political freedom allows. 7. They allow little if any input from people who might be harmed. For 20 years, the Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP Report) has demonstrated the United States’ conviction that human trafficking is a global threat necessitating a global response. But strong rhetoric from US officials condemning human rights violations in China is often undercut by Trump’s praise of Xi Jinping and other friendly autocrats, such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Egypt’s Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, and Saudi Arabia’s Mohammad bin Salman, not to mention the Trump administration’s own rights-violating domestic policies such as its cruel and illegal forced separation of children from their parents at the US-Mexican border. Children in regular Xinjiang schools may face similar ideological training. Other governments were all too happy to embrace Beijing. of human trafficking in China range from forced marriage to forced labor, forced sex . Independent journalism is no more. Many autocrats look with envy at China’s seductive mix of successful economic development, rapid modernization, and a seemingly firm grip on political power. In response to the proliferation of consumption venues such as . Donate [1] Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Xingfa [Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)] (Criminal Law) (adopted by the National People’s Congress (NPC), Mar. Official blog from the Law Library of Congress, Back to Training Related to Combating Human Trafficking. They prioritize their power, their families, and their cronies. An important instrument of China’s influence has been Xi’s “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI)—a trillion-dollar infrastructure and investment program that facilitates Chinese access to markets and natural resources across 70 countries. And it certainly wants no independent evaluation of civil and political rights, because respect for them would create a system of accountability—to civic activists, independent journalists, political parties, independent judges, and free and fair elections—that it is determined to avoid. Traffickers are denying nearly 25 million people their fundamental right to freedom, forcing them to live enslaved and toil for their exploiter’s profit. Vietnamese citizens, primarily women … In Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, some pro-Beijing students have sought to shut down campus discussions about human rights abuses in Hong Kong, Xinjiang, or Tibet. Governments should tightly regulate the technology that empowers China’s mass surveillance and repression—and bolster privacy protections to check the spread of such surveillance systems. Four Chinese law-enforcement departments have jointly issued a circular to further protect the rights of children and women, making the sale of one's child a crime. Four Chinese law-enforcement departments have jointly issued a circular to further protect the rights of children and women, making the sale of one's child a crime. 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