(ATF) Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region has launched an action plan to add 200,000 jobs in the construction sector over the next three years.
A total of 50,000 new jobs will be created this year, 70,000 next year and 80,000 in 2022, according to the regional department of housing and urban-rural development.
Training courses will be provided to help job seekers learn skills needed in sectors such as water conservancy, transportation and electric power.
The action plan will mainly benefit impoverished Uygur labour forces from southern Xinjiang by helping them find jobs in construction enterprises.
The Uighurs are a Turkic ethnic group whose members are predominantly Muslim. Nearly 11 million of them live in Xinjiang. A recent series of leaks have highlighted the enormity of the Chinese repression of Uygurs in Xinjiang’s “re-education camps.”
The Chinese government has reportedly detained more than a million Uighurs since April 2017 for “vocational training.” The government claims that these are “voluntary vocational training centres” where people acquire new job skills and are free to leave on the completion of the training.
But the recent series of exposés highlight the inhuman conditions in which the detainees undertake community activities forcibly in these camps.
