Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. YOHO. Madam Speaker, I thank the chairman and the leaders on the Democrat side.

Since 2017, the CCP has systemically targeted and rounded up over a million people comprised of Uyghurs and other East Turkic minorities and put them in concentration camps where they were subject to inhumane living conditions, forced cultural brainwashing, rape, and torture.

Just this week, the CCP released a white paper regarding its detention of Uyghurs. They admitted to incarcerating up to 1.3 million Uyghurs per year from 2014 to 2019. That is up to 8 million innocent people in prison, brainwashed, tortured, raped, in their so-called reeducation, which are really concentration camps. If they will admit to that, how many more are there really that have been interned?

The Chinese State is not only complicit but responsible for activity supporting the genocidal campaign targeting vulnerable populations based on everything from religious beliefs, their language, their hairstyle and even their diet. This is not even to mention the horrific practices of forced sterilization and ``marriages'' to Han Chinese men.

Many of these people have now been forced into manufacturing jobs under harsh conditions, which we have heard--Mr. Smith and Chairman McCaul have pointed out--these products benefitting from forced labor have found their ways into our supply chains through major brands and corporations as it becomes increasingly difficult for companies to conduct due diligence investigations in China.

Further, we must recognize that the Chinese diplomatic presence globally is also engaged in this effort. A wealth of evidence is available to suggest that Chinese embassies and consulates around the world are actively seeking to force Chinese Uyghurs to return to mainland China, often to renew their passports, only to be abducted immediately and sent to one of the camps.

As Members of Congress, we have a moral obligation to ensure that the state-sponsored campaign of ethnic cleansing and forced labor-- reminiscent of the concentration camps of the Nazi regime, when we swore as a world community, ``never again''--are shut down and punished to the full extent of U.S. and international law.

The business community of America also has a moral obligation, from manufacturing to Hollywood, to not appease China in the name of profit.

Madam Speaker, as an original cosponsor of this bill, I support its passage in the House and encourage its timely consideration in the Senate.

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