Note: This video from Bitter Winter has been featured in the context of its exposure of a major abuse of human rights perpetrated against Uyghur families and children by the Chinese regime. We have no affiliation with Bitter Wind nor share or endorse any particular religious belief which may or may not be associated with that organization.

Having just witnessed a video shot covertly inside East Turkistan (so-called Xinjiang Province) of a hugely overcrowded dormitory containing Uyghur infants (whose parents have been incarcerated into Chinese run indoctrination camps) a question came to mind. What action has the organization Save The Children taken on this issue? Surely it would be deeply concerned at thousands of children being forced from their families into what are effectively prisons, traumatized and abused, and suffering a miserable existence under a daily regime of enforced Chinese language lessons and political brainwashing?

Image: ap

Yet on running an online search we’re finding it hard to locate any concern or word of opposition from the world’s premier organization dedicated to relieving the suffering and abuse of children. What’s going down here?  Uyghur families being torn apart, children removed from their parents, sent off to brain-washing centers and detained in ‘orphanages’. Why the deafening silence from Save The Children?

The organization is deeply embedded within China, and has been collaborating with the Chinese Regime for some years. It runs projects not only in occupied East Turkistan but in Tibet also. To do so it clearly has been required to comply with the dictates of China’s totalitarian government, which perhaps explains its reticence to comment on human rights violations. Could be also that a value judgement within their executive has concluded that in the balance its presence in China is worth such ethically worrying compromise and compliance when viewed against any progress it brings.

Image: archivenet

Such a rationalization, however well intended, cannot conceal the reality that in remaining silent on the trauma and abuse inflicted upon the children of occupied East Turkistan and Tibet it is guilty of complicity. Furthermore it’s enthusiastic partnership with China sends a powerful signal to the Chinese Regime that Save The Children cares little enough of human rights abuses not to cooperate with the same authority and political ideology responsible for such violations! It’s an example of double-think, a cognitive dissonance and process of denial, selectively ignoring the cultural genocide waged against the people of East Turkistan and Tibet.

Image: cnn

Meanwhile the self-congratulatory claims regarding their projects in East Turkistan should be viewed against the following curiously contradictory admission:

“It is not easy for Save the Children to support the development of bilingual education in Xinjiang, where there is increasing use of Mandarin as the principal or only language of instruction in schools. While this is seen as a way to improve the standard of Mandarin among minority graduates entering the work force, the emphasis on teaching Mandarin in schools has reduced the status of mother tongue, and raised concerns among ethnic minorities about its effect on the sustainability of mother tongue and local culture…..” (emphasis added) Source: The Challenges of Bilingual Education in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region People’s Republic of China David Strawbridge Education Advisor, Save the Children

Image: tibetoffice

Having conceded that reality and revealed its acute awareness of such cultural oppression the same report goes on to make the following delusional claim: “However, by working within the boundaries of government policies and ‘bilingual’ education practices, we have helped improve the quality of mother tongue and Mandarin teaching in minority schools.” emphasis added) Source: Ibid

There’s a worrying inconsistency at work there, and a tacit admission that the organization, although cognizant of the eradication of the Uyghur language and imposition of Chinese upon children, is an active and willing partner in such a process!

Image: archivenet

This collaboration and endorsement will trouble anyone who values human rights and opposes cultural destruction. That Save The Children continues to maintain a silence on the plight of Uyghur and Tibetan children, traumatized by a forced separation from their parents and brutally indoctrinated in what are effectively detention centers, justly denies them any moral credibility.

If like us you wish to express your concern on this situation and would like to call upon Save The Children to make public its position on the persecution and oppression suffered by Uyghur and Tibetan children then please contact any of the following:

Twitter: President-Elect Ms Janti Soeripto @jantiso and/or CEO Carolyn Miles @carolynsave

Email: BeijingOffice.China@savethechildren.org