Human rights abuses in China
Inside China people are persecuted and imprisoned for their religious and spiritual beliefs; rural migrants are deprived of their basic rights; families are forced from their homes without compensation; and ethnic groups are harassed and silenced.
Violence and discrimination against women
Violence and discrimination against women remains severe in China, according to our most recent reports.
Workers’ rights
Independent trade unions are illegal in China. And the country’s official All China Federation of Trade Unions frequently fails to protect its members’ welfare.
North Korean refugees
China reportedly runs a rewards system for people who turn in North Koreans illegally living within the country’s borders. It also imposes heavy fines on those found supporting North Koreans.
Migrant workers
Most of China’s internal migrant workers are treated as an urban underclass and denied their basic rights. They’re shut out of the healthcare system and state education, live in appalling and overcrowded conditions and are exploited by their employers.
Tiananmen Square protests
The bloody crackdown on peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square is an infamous moment in China’s history.
Corporate social responsibility
All companies and businesses have a responsibility to respect human rights.
Forced evictions
Many people have been forced out of their homes to make way for Olympics-related development in Beijing.
Sudan
China sells arms, including ammunition, tanks and helicopters, to Sudan and it also buys most of its oil. We believe it’s likely these arms are being used to commit serious human rights abuses within Sudan.
Tibet
The Central Asian territory of Tibet, home to the mainly Buddhist Tibetan people, is run as an autonomous region of China. Chinese communist troops invaded the remote Himalayan region known as the ‘roof of the world’ in 1950.
Organ harvesting
Falun Gong groups overseas have documented more than 2,000 deaths in custody since the crackdown on their group began. They claim many of the deaths are the result of enforced organ harvesting.
The Falun Gong and religious groups
China comes down hard on people who practise a religion outside the officially sanctioned channels. Members of underground Protestant house churches and unofficial Catholic churches, Muslim Uighurs from the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and Tibetan Buddhits are detained, ill-treated and tortured.
The Uighur people
The Uighurs are a mainly Muslim ethnic minority, who mostly live in China’s western Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Inside China, the world’s most populous country, people are persecuted and imprisoned for their religious beliefs. Rural migrants are deprived of their basic rights. Families are forced from their homes without compensation. And ethnic groups are suppressed and harassed.