[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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