The Uyghurs arrive in Chinese factory towns by train and plane, often in groups wearing matching caps or jackets. They are sent by the government to work where they are needed, whether it is molding rubber slippers, assembling automotive wiring or sorting chicken carcasses.

这些维吾尔人坐火车和飞机来到中国的工厂城镇，他们通常成群结队，穿戴统一的帽子或外套。政府将他们运到需要劳动力的地方去工作，比如生产橡胶拖鞋、组装汽车线束或分拣鸡肉。

A joint investigation by The New York Times, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and Der Spiegel has revealed that Uyghurs are being sent out of their homeland, Xinjiang, on government work programs, more widely than previously documented.

《纽约时报》、“新闻调查局”和《明镜》周刊的一项联合调查显示，维吾尔人因政府工作项目派遣而离开他们的家园新疆的情况，要比之前记载的更严重。

We found that workers are now involved in making a variety of goods for many well-known brands in factories across the country, presenting a challenge to international regulators looking to identify and purge forced labor from supply chains.

我们发现，中国各地许多为知名品牌生产各种商品的工厂涉及这样的工人，这给寻求在供应链中识别和清除强迫劳动的国际监管机构带来了挑战。

Uyghur workers were traced to more than 70 factories in at least five major industries.

调查在覆盖至少五个主要行业的70多家工厂里找到了维吾尔工人。

Experts estimate that tens of thousands of Uyghurs have been transferred under these programs. While the precise conditions faced by these workers remain unclear, United Nations labor experts, academics and human rights advocates assert that the programs are coercive in nature.

专家估计，数以万计的维吾尔人通过这些项目被转移。虽然尚不清楚工人具体受到了怎样的待遇，联合国劳工专家、学者和人权倡导者均称这些项目有强制性质。

“For these Uyghurs being forced and dragged out of their homes to go to work, it’s hell,” said Rahima Mahmut, a Uyghur activist in exile and executive director of Stop Uyghur Genocide, a British-based rights group.

流亡的维吾尔活动人士、总部设在英国的权利组织“停止维吾尔种族灭绝”的执行董事拉希玛·马赫穆特说：“对于这些被迫离开家园去工作的维吾尔人来说，那就是地狱。”

“It’s like you’re being taken from one country to another. That’s how different it is,” she said. “From the language, to the food, to the way of life.”

“这就像你从一个国家被带到另一个国家一样。就是这么不同，”她说。“从语言，到食物，再到生活方式都不一样。”

The Chinese Embassy in Washington said that allegations of forced labor in Xinjiang were “nothing but vicious lies concocted by anti-China forces.”

中国驻华盛顿大使馆表示，关于新疆存在强迫劳动的指控“完全是反华势力炮制的恶毒谎言”。

The embassy said the government’s policies made the region safer. “Xinjiang-related issues are not human rights issues at all, but in essence about countering violent terrorism and separatism,” it said.

大使馆表示，政府的政策使该地区更安全，“新疆相关问题根本不是人权问题，本质上是打击暴力恐怖主义和分裂主义的问题。”

The Chinese government has long played a central role in the transfer of Uyghurs from their homes to both jobs elsewhere in Xinjiang and in other parts of China. The jobs strategy was initially aimed at reducing poverty and unemployment, but in recent years it has become a crucial part of Beijing’s efforts to reshape Uyghur identity in the name of security.

长期以来，在将维吾尔人从家园转移到新疆其他地方以及中国其他地区就业的过程中，中国政府一直发挥着核心作用。这项就业策略最初旨在减少贫困和失业，但近年来已成为北京以安全之名重塑维吾尔身份的关键。

The authorities have imposed an intense security crackdown in Xinjiang to quash any sign of resistance to Beijing’s rule after a spate of violence involving Uyghurs. In 2013, a sport utility vehicle plowed into a crowd near Tiananmen Square in Beijing, killing two and injuring dozens; and in 2014, a group armed with long knives attacked people at a train station in the southwestern city of Kunming, killing 31.

在一系列涉及维吾尔人的暴力事件之后，当局在新疆实施了严厉的安全镇压，以镇压任何对北京统治的抵抗。2013年，一辆运动型多用途车在北京天安门广场附近冲入人群，造成两人死亡、数十人受伤；2014年，一群持长刀的人在西南城市昆明的一个火车站袭击人群，造成31人死亡。

The violence convinced China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, that Islamic extremism was not a fringe ideology, but something that had burrowed deep into Uyghur society, according to internal Chinese documents leaked to The New York Times in 2019. He responded with a wave of repression in Xinjiang that included holding Uyghurs in internment camps and forcing them to work in factories and fields.

根据2019年泄露给《纽约时报》的中文内部文件，这些暴力事件使中国最高领导人习近平相信，伊斯兰极端主义并非边缘意识形态，而是已经深入维吾尔社会。他以一波在新疆的镇压作为回应，其中包括将维吾尔人关押在拘禁营中，并强迫他们在工厂和农田里劳动。

The authorities used the labor transfer program to control Uyghurs who were not in the camps, according to Adrian Zenz, an anthropologist who is an expert on Uyghur forced labor. Chinese officials deemed many of these Uyghurs “idle” and therefore a threat, requiring close monitoring.

研究维吾尔人强迫劳动的专家、人类学家郑国恩(Adrian Zenz)表示，当局利用劳动转移项目来控制那些不在拘禁营中的维吾尔人。中国官员认为这些维吾尔人中有许多“闲散”人员，因此构成威胁，需要严密监控。

A report shared with Chinese officials in 2018 written by scholars at Nankai University, in northeastern China, suggested the transfer program be expanded to reduce the population density of Uyghurs in Xinjiang and to “meld and assimilate” the ethnic group.

2018年，中国南开大学的学者撰写的一份报告被中国官员们传阅，该报告建议扩大转移项目，以降低新疆维吾尔人的人口密度，并对该民族进行“融合和同化”。

Leaked internal Xinjiang police files obtained by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, a nonprofit anti-communist group in Washington where Mr. Zenz works as director of China Studies, show that anyone who resists participating in a government program like a labor transfer can face arrest.

泄露的新疆警方内部文件显示，任何抵制参与政府项目（如劳动转移）的人都可能面临逮捕。这些文件由华盛顿反共产主义非营利组织共产主义受害者纪念基金会获得，郑国恩在该组织担任中国研究主任。

Some Uyghurs choose to go because they have grown weary of constant surveillance and security checkpoints that can make life in parts of Xinjiang feel like an open air prison, overseas Uyghur activists say.

海外维吾尔活动人士表示，一些维吾尔人选择离开是因为他们厌倦了持续的监视和安全检查站，这一切令新疆部分地区的生活感觉像是露天监狱。

The recruitment process is also coercive, experts say. It often consists of government work teams going door-to-door in villages and compelling farmers to leave their homes, often for the first time.

专家称，招募过程也具有强制性。通常政府工作组会来到村里，挨家挨户上门强迫农民离开家园，那往往是他们第一次背井离乡。

Government officials are offered incentives to recruit as many Uyghurs as possible to meet targets set by the state for the number of transferred workers, said Darren Byler, a professor and anthropologist studying Uyghur culture at Simon Fraser University, in Canada.

加拿大西蒙弗雷泽大学研究维吾尔文化的教授兼人类学家达伦·拜勒表示，为了达到国家设定的转移工人数量目标，政府向官员提供奖励，激励他们尽可能多地招募维吾尔人。

Uyghurs also join the program because there are few other opportunities. Many rural Uyghurs have lost work as the government has seized land for development and large state-owned farms. And Uyghurs have long faced discrimination by Chinese employers, who often favor hiring workers of the ethnic Han majority.

维吾尔人也会因为没有什么别的选择而加入这个项目。由于政府为开发和大型国有农场征用土地，许多农村维吾尔人失去了工作。而且他们长期面临中国雇主的歧视，后者倾向于雇佣汉族工人。

The Nankai University study said there were many instances in which transferred Uyghurs were prevented by local police in other provinces from getting off their trains. This led to many “embarrassing” incidents, the authors wrote, in which the workers would get approval to leave the train station, only to be denied entry at their factory gates. And if they were granted access to the factory, they would sometimes be prevented from working and sent home.

南开大学的研究报告称，在许多情况下，被转移的维吾尔人被其他省份的当地警方阻止下火车。作者写道，这导致了许多“令人尴尬”的事件，工人们获得了离开火车站的许可，却被工厂拒之门外。得以进入工厂的，有时也会被禁止工作并遣送回家。