CFU PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 8, 2026
Contact: contact@campaignforuyghurs.org
https://campaignforuyghurs.org/

CFU Calls for the Protection of Uyghur Women this International Women’s Day

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On International Women’s Day, Campaign for Uyghurs (CFU) stands in solidarity with Uyghur women who are specifically targeted in the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) ongoing genocide. As the world celebrates women’s rights and equality, Uyghur women endure a state system designed to erase their future through forced sterilization, sexual violence, forced marriage, and the separation of over a million children into state-run institutions. CFU calls on the international community and women’s rights movements to recognize that the protection of Uyghur women is a shared global responsibility.

The true battleground of the Uyghur genocide is the bodies of Uyghur women. Beyond physical and sexual abuse in concentration camps, Beijing facilitates government-sponsored mass rape through forced marriages of Uyghur women to Han Chinese men, incentivized by state benefits. Coupled with forced sterilizations, forced abortions, mandatory IUDs, and the criminalization of “illegal births,” these policies have caused an unprecedented collapse in Uyghur birth rates, with growth approaching zero in many Uyghur-populated regions. Chinese state media reported that 1.1 million Han Chinese cadres, mostly men, were deployed into Uyghur homes to monitor their daily lives. 

“The CCP’s campaign to control women’s bodies is a calculated strategy to erase our future,” said Rushan Abbas, Founder and Executive Director of CFU. “On this International Women’s Day, global advocates have a moral duty to extend a firm helping hand to Uyghur women. Their suffering highlights the heightened vulnerability that women endure amidst genocide, and how controlling women enables the larger control of a population. For this day to be truly inclusive, we must advocate for Uyghur women’s rights to have children, to raise a future generation safely, and the right to marry freely.”

Technology has intensified repression against Uyghur women. Biometric collection, algorithmic “risk scoring,” and pervasive surveillance monitor women’s movements, beliefs, and reproductive status. Survivors of detention describe sexualized torture, humiliation, and invasive procedures performed without consent. Uyghur women religious leaders and intellectuals, including retired physician Dr. Gulshan Abbas and prominent scholar Professor Rahile Dawut, remain unjustly imprisoned on fabricated charges. These violations extend beyond borders through transnational repression, as Uyghur women in exile face threats to their families, harassment, and intimidation.

CFU proudly initiated, drafted, and led the Berlin Declaration Platform for Action on Uyghur Women’s Rights and Freedom, introduced at the International Uyghur Women’s Dialogue in Berlin in November 2025. Translated into 20 languages and endorsed by almost 100  organizations and more than 180 individuals worldwide, the Berlin Declaration is a historic call for accountability, urging governments, institutions, and civil society to uphold justice and freedom and to protect Uyghur women and their cultural identity. The Declaration calls on states to recognize the targeted suppression of Uyghur births as a central component of genocide, urges the United Nations to create mechanisms to investigate persecution of Uyghur women, and demands that women’s rights organizations worldwide center Uyghur women in their advocacy.

CFU calls on the international community and women’s rights advocates to recognize the severity of the atrocities faced by Uyghur women and fulfill the duty to defend their rights. We urge governments to impose targeted sanctions, enforce laws prohibiting goods made with Uyghur forced labor, provide pathways to asylum and family reunification, and hold China accountable for crimes against Uyghur women. Upholding the rights of Uyghur women is essential to building a women’s rights framework that is truly universal, intersectional, and capable of confronting the most complex and technologically enabled forms of repression.