Title: Condemning the atrocities and crimes against humanity being perpetrated against religious and ethnic minority women in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region by the Government of the People's Republic of China.
Policy area: International Affairs

Summary:
This resolution condemns the atrocities against religious and ethnic minority women in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China. It also calls on China to end all coercive policies, including coercive population-control practices, and to release all individuals detained in internment camps and forced-labor programs.

[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 585 Introduced in House (IH)]

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117th CONGRESS
  1st Session
H. RES. 585

Condemning the atrocities and crimes against humanity being perpetrated 
  against religious and ethnic minority women in the Xinjiang Uyghur 
 Autonomous Region by the Government of the People's Republic of China.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            August 10, 2021

 Ms. Speier (for herself, Mr. Deutch, Mr. Lieu, Ms. Titus, Mr. Costa, 
  Ms. Lois Frankel of Florida, and Mr. Pocan) submitted the following 
   resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
Condemning the atrocities and crimes against humanity being perpetrated 
  against religious and ethnic minority women in the Xinjiang Uyghur 
 Autonomous Region by the Government of the People's Republic of China.

Whereas repression of ethnic Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous 
        Region has been ongoing, and was formalized with the ``Strike Hard 
        Campaign against Violent Terrorism'' that began in 2014;
Whereas the mass internment of Uyghur and other Muslim ethnic minorities in the 
        Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has been ongoing since April 2017;
Whereas the People's Republic of China has conducted a targeted and systemic 
        population-control campaign against ethnic and religious minorities in 
        the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region by imposing and implementing 
        coercive population-control practices including selectively enforcing 
        birth quotas, targeting minority women who are in noncompliance with 
        birth quotas, and subjecting women to coercive measures such as forced 
        birth control, forced sterilization, and forced abortion;
Whereas the most frequently cited internment reason for one majority-Uyghur 
        county is a violation of birth control regulations;
Whereas widespread reports indicate that detained Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, 
        Kyrgyz, and other ethnic and religious minority women are subjected to 
        sexual violence and prevented from reproducing;
Whereas, in August 2020, a first-hand account by a former teacher at a women's 
        internment camp in Urumqi reported human rights abuses and atrocities 
        against many of the 10,000 interned women, including inhumane and 
        unsanitary conditions, forced injections of unknown substances, forced 
        contraception, daily rape and sexual abuse by camp guards, and torture;
Whereas the People's Republic of China allocated $37 million for birth control 
        surgeries in 2019 and 2020 and planned to force more than 80 percent of 
        women in southern areas of Xinjiang to adopt ``birth control measures 
        with long-term effectiveness'';
Whereas sterilization rates in Xinjiang grew seven-fold from 2016 to 2018 to 
        more than 60,000 procedures;
Whereas birthrates in the majority-Uyghur regions of Hotan and Kashgar decreased 
        by more than 60 percent from 2015 to 2018, and in 2019 the birthrate of 
        the Uyghur population plummeted by 24 percent, compared to a 4.2 percent 
        decline nationwide;
Whereas the People's Republic of China set a near-zero birthrate target of 1.05 
        per 1,000 people for one majority-Uyghur and Kazakh region for 2020, 
        compared to 19.66 per 1,000 in 2018;
Whereas, in 2018, 80 percent of intrauterine device (IUD) insertions in China 
        were performed in Xinjiang, which only makes up 1.8 percent of the 
        nation's population, up from only 2.5 percent in 2014;
Whereas Chinese IUDs are designed without strings so that they can only be 
        removed through surgical procedures by state-approved medical 
        practitioners, and unauthorized removals are punished with prison 
        sentences and fines;
Whereas the People's Republic of China's policies incentivize interethnic 
        marriages between ethnic minorities and Han that effectively assimilate 
        minorities into the Han culture;
Whereas the Pair Up and Become Family program sends male Han Chinese officials 
        to live in and surveil Uyghur and other Muslim ethnic minorities' homes, 
        sometimes forcing Uyghur women to sleep alongside the Han officials sent 
        to observe them;
Whereas Xinjiang policies disrupt every facet of ethnic minority women's lives 
        beginning with sending young girls to Chinese boarding school, then 
        pressuring marriage to Han Chinese men, pregnancy checks, and forced 
        birth control or sterilization as a means of population control;
Whereas the Programme of Action adopted at the International Conference on 
        Population and Development in 1994 affirmed the right of individuals to 
        make decisions concerning reproduction free of all forms of 
        discrimination, violence, or coercion, and reproductive coercion 
        includes, but is not limited to, use of incentives or disincentives to 
        lower or raise fertility, withholding of information on reproductive 
        health options, coerced or forced abortion, involuntary sterilization or 
        use of contraception, or forced pregnancy;
Whereas, on October 6, 2020, 39 countries delivered a cross-regional joint 
        statement to the United States Mission to the United Nations on the 
        human rights abuses on Uyghurs and other minorities for forced birth 
        control including sterilization;
Whereas, on January 19, 2021, the Department of State determined that the 
        People's Republic of China committed crimes against humanity and 
        genocide against Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minority groups 
        in Xinjiang, citing forced sterilizations, forced abortions, coerced 
        marriages, and separation of Uyghur children from their families;
Whereas the Department of State's 2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 
        affirmed the genocide determination and noted coercive population 
        control measures inflicted on ethnic and religious minority women in 
        China, including forced injections with ``drugs that cause temporary or 
        permanent end to their menstrual cycles and fertility''; and
Whereas the United States ratified the United Nations Convention on the 
        Prevention and Punishment of Genocide in 1988, recognizing that 
        ``imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group'' with 
        intent to destroy a group in whole or part is an act that constitutes 
        genocide: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
            (1) condemns the atrocities against religious and ethnic 
        minority women in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region by the 
        Government of the People's Republic of China;
            (2) calls on the People's Republic of China--
                    (A) to uphold its obligations as a signatory to the 
                Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide 
                and the International Convention on the Elimination of 
                All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and cease 
                violations of the Conventions' acts;
                    (B) to halt all forms of forced or coercive 
                population-control practices and end all coercive 
                policies; and
                    (C) to release all individuals detained in 
                internment camps and forced-labor programs, including 
                women interned for violations of birth control 
                regulations;
            (3) condemns performing unwanted, unnecessary medical 
        procedures on individuals without their full, informed consent 
        and recognizes that everyone has a right to control their own 
        reproductive choices and make informed choices about their 
        bodies; and
            (4) urges the President of the United States--
                    (A) to take all available actions to prevent 
                atrocities against religious and ethnic minority women 
                in the People's Republic of China;
                    (B) to encourage and engage in a United Nations-led 
                full investigation of state-sponsored atrocities 
                against women in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, 
                including measures intended to prevent births within 
                specific ethnic and religious groups;
                    (C) to use interagency partnerships and existing 
                authorities, including the Global Magnitsky Human 
                Rights Accountability Act, to impose targeted sanctions 
                against individuals and entities responsible for 
                coercive population-control measures and other human 
                rights abuses against women in the Xinjiang Uyghur 
                Autonomous Region;
                    (D) to address atrocities against religious and 
                ethnic minority women in the People's Republic of China 
                through bilateral relations and engagement with 
                multilateral institutions and conventions to which both 
                the United States and the People's Republic of China 
                are parties;
                    (E) to use all existing authorities to provide 
                protection to ethnic and religious minority women who 
                escape the People's Republic of China, including the 
                authority to include Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and 
                certain others who are or were nationals and residents 
                of the People's Republic of China as Priority 2 
                refugees of special humanitarian concern; and
                    (F) to use all existing authorities to investigate 
                and provide protection to individuals currently 
                unjustly detained by the People's Republic of China, 
                including at least 21 of whom have ties to the United 
                States, 5 of which are women.
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