Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2020, published 109th ILC session (2021)

Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention, 1958 (No. 111) - China (Ratification: 2006)

The Committee notes the observations made by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), received on 6 October 2020, which are also being considered within the framework of its examination of the Employment Policy Convention, 1964 (No. 122). In its observations, the ITUC alleges that, on the basis of ethnic and religious discrimination against the Uyghur minority, the Government engaged in a widespread and systematic programme of forced labour, on an unprecedented scale affecting millions of people, under so-called “re-education programmes” throughout the Xinjiang Autonomous Uyghur Region; and draws the attention of the Committee to the examination of these issues within the UN Human Rights system, in particular by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in the context of the Universal Periodic Review on China. According to the ITUC, the Government imposes forced labour on ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang Autonomous Uyghur Region with the goal of social control and the assimilation of the Uyghur culture and identity. The Committee notes the information provided by the Government in response to these allegations, which has arrived too late for the Committee’s examination. The Committee will examine these matters next year along with the Government’s report in reply to its previous direct request.