CHINA: Xinjiang government confirms huge birth rate drop but denies forced sterilization of women / US: More migrant women say they did not consent to surgeries at Ice center
22 September 2020
Disclaimer: Human Rights Without Frontiers (HRWF) publishes information from a variety of outside sources which express a wide range of viewpoints. The positions taken in these communications are not necessarily those of HRWF.
CHINA: Xinjiang government confirms huge birth rate drop but denies forced sterilization of women
By Ivan Watson, Rebecca Wright and Ben Westcott

CNN (21.09.2020) - https://cnn.it/3hPVa4h - Chinese officials have officially acknowledged birth rates in Xinjiang dropped by almost a third in 2018, compared to the previous year, in a letter to CNN in which they also denied reports of forced sterilization and genocide by authorities in the far western region.

The Xinjiang government sent CNN the six-page fax in response to questions for an article published in July that documented a campaign of abuse and control by Beijing targeting women from the Uyghur minority, a Muslim ethnic group numbering more than 10 million people. The fax didn't arrive until September 1, a month after the story was published.
US: More migrant women say they did not consent to surgeries at Ice center
AP review finds no evidence of mass hysterectomies but files show growing allegations of operations women did not fully understand.

By Nomaan Merchant

The Guardian (18.09.2020) - https://bit.ly/3clezJ8 - Sitting across from her lawyer at an immigration detention center in rural Georgia, Mileidy Cardentey Fernandez unbuttoned her jail jumpsuit to show the scars on her abdomen. There were three small, circular marks.

The 39-year-old woman from Cuba was told only that she would undergo an operation to treat her ovarian cysts, but a month later, she's still not sure what procedure she got. After Cardentey repeatedly requested her medical records to find out, Irwin county detention center gave her more than 100 pages showing a diagnosis of cysts but nothing from the day of the surgery.
Are women's rights and religion
inherently at odds with each other?

This report by HRWF addresses early, forced and
child marriages, female genital mutilation,
violence against women, 'honour' killing, public dress
codes, and reproductive rights. Through these
various violations of women's rights, the report
explores the ways in which religious texts, practices,
cultural influences, and patriarchal systems influence
or motivate the infringement of these rights; and to
discover and highlight the powerful potential that religion
and religious leaders have to help guarantee women's
rights around the world.
Brianna Hertford is the staff member responsible for this newsletter. Contact her at: b.hertford@hrwf.org

Other HRWF newsletters: Freedom of Religion or Belief | Human Rights in the World | LGBTQI People & Human Rights | Religion & Security

Some activities of HRWF Int'l in 2020

Publication of an article about the fight against corruption in Ukraine in EU Political Report (08.09.2019)

Participation of HRWF director Willy Fautré as a panelist for a webinar by Vilnius University "Jehovah's Witnesses and Their Opponents: Russia, the West, and Beyond" (03.09.2020)

Participation of HRWF director Willy Fautré as a panelist for a webinar with the Ukrainian think tank Polita "Dialogue Kyiv – Brussels on Justice Reform" (02.09.2020)

HRWF director Willy Fautré interviewed by Newsweek about the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia (28.07.2020)

Participation of HRWF's consultant on China and North Korea Dr Zsuzsa Anna Ferenczy as a panelist for a webinar on EU-China Dynamics (28.07.2020)

Participation of HRWF director Willy Fautré as a panelist for a webinar about a Taoist group in Taiwan being harassed by the tax administration (22.07.2020)

Participation of HRWF director Willy Fautré as a panelist for a webinar about the scapegoating of Shincheonji Church in South Korea (20.07.2020)

Participation of HRWF director Willy Fautré as a panelist for a webinar about the 21st anniversary of the banning of Falun Gong in China (16.07.2020)

Publication of an article in the EU Political Report about the scapegoating of the Shincheonji Church (10.06.2020)

Submission of a complaint to the UN about children's rights in Croatia (27.05.2020)

Co-signatory of a submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on FORB about the scapegoating of the Shincheonji Church in South Korea (25.05.2020)

Publication of an article in EU Today about the integration of Western Balkans countries into the EU (22.05.2020)

Publication of an article in the EU Political Report by the director of HRWF titled "Serbs' continued fight for property rights in Croatia" (21.05.2020)

Publication of an article in the EU Reporter by the director of HRWF titled "Fascism and anti-Serb sentiments in Croatia" (11.05.2020)
 
Publication of an academic paper in the Journal of CESNUR by the director of HRWF titled "Coercive Change of Religion in South Korea: The Case of the Shincheonji Church" (05.05.2020)
Human Rights Without Frontiers Int'l | www.hrwf.eu | Phone: +32 2 345 61 45