China's coercing of Muslim Uyghurs and other minorities into forced labor in agriculture and manufacturing in Xinjiang could amount to "enslavement as a crime against humanity," an independent UN expert has concluded.
Uyghurs are a Turkic ethnic group mainly originating from and culturally affiliated with the Central and East Asian regions.
Their treatment by Chinese officials in Xinjiang Province, where Uyghurs have been forced into a network of detention camps, has been labeled genocide by the United States, while the UN has accused Chinese authorities of unlawfully arresting and mistreating Uyghurs and using them for forced labor.
According to the U.S. State Department, as many as 2 million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and members of Xinjiang's other indigenous ethnic groups have been taken to detention centers in the western Chinese region.
WATCH: Sairagul Sauytbay, an ethnic Kazakh from China, was sent to work as a teacher in one of the country's so-called "reeducation camps." Human rights researchers say more than 1 million detainees, mostly Muslims, have been imprisoned in the camps. In 2018, Sauytbay escaped to Kazakhstan, then Sweden, and began recounting shocking stories of torture and oppression at the camp in China's Xinjiang region. Her efforts to reveal the conditions there have won her international recognition.
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After Fleeing China, An Ethnic Kazakh Works To Expose Xinjiang 'Reeducation Camps'
China denies that the facilities are internment camps, saying they are necessary to curb terrorism, separatism, and religious radicalism. But people who have fled the province say that thousands are undergoing "political indoctrination" at facilities known officially as reeducation camps.
The report, released late on August 16 by the UN special rapporteur on modern slavery, Tomoya Obokata, pointed to two "distinct state-mandated systems" in China in which forced labor has occurred.
One is a vocational skills education and training center system in which minorities are detained and subject to work placements, while another involves attempts to reduce poverty through labor transfer, in which rural workers are moved into "secondary or tertiary work."
"While these programs may create employment opportunities for minorities and enhance their incomes...the special rapporteur considers that indicators of forced labor pointing to the involuntary nature of work rendered by affected communities have been present in many cases," the report said.
The nature and extent of powers exercised over the workers -- including excessive surveillance and abusive living and working conditions -- could "amount to enslavement as a crime against humanity, meriting a further independent analysis," it said.
Obokata said a similar labor transfer system exists in Tibet, where the "program has shifted mainly farmers, herders, and other rural workers into low-skilled and low-paid employment."
In May, the United Nation's human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, made a rare six-day visit to China that took her to Xinjiang.
Bachelet's trip was criticized by Washington and major rights groups for "whitewashing" Beijing's "atrocities," with critics calling for her resignation.
Bachelet is due to publish a report detailing her visit before she steps down at the end of the month when her term expires.