Uyghur Muslims, the forgotten minority of China; the story of a young woman’s trauma

BY KAHA G. – 15 YEARS OLD

“My name is Aséna Tahir Izgil. I’m 19 years old and one of the many Uyghur Muslims the Chinese Government has oppressed. In case you didn’t know, Uyghur is an ethnic minority being imprisoned in labor camps by the government in Xinjiang. The pain I witnessed before escaping in 2017 has aged me beyond my years. I feel like everyone’s grandma, they even told me so! I’m slowly learning English, and my favorite word in the whole language is ‘I don’t know,’ because it gets me out of complicated questions I don’t want to answer.

It’s hard to relate to American teenagers, because all they talk about is: TikTok, clothing, malls, games, and movies, while all I think about are genocide, Uyghurs, international policies all the annoying adult facts. I’ve been stripped of my youth and rushed into adulthood. My mind doesn’t match up with my age, and it’s driving me crazy.

They just describe Uyghur Muslims as: fruit-eating, dancing, singing, an optimistic, brutal, religious, ethnic minority that like, dance around a fire. That was their stereotype for us. It makes you feel like you don’t belong in this country. They introduce you like an alien or something.

The Chinese government installed so many cameras, and did fingerprint checkers and all this stuff, that a lot of Uyghurs have started to believe that the cables have chips or something that can record what we’re saying. My parents didn’t believe it, but they still don’t talk about politics at home. You can tell how terrified we are. We couldn’t do anything. We couldn’t even talk about it. We were forced to get used to it, and no one could stand up for us to say, ‘We’re not prisoners.’ Not even the brave ones or the intellectuals because they were all in camps as well.

How the Chinese government started their plan to make us disappear was to first target the religious people. If you look religious, not even that, if you look Uyghur especially when you are a male, they will definitely think you are suspicious. By suspicious, I mean a religious person who is supposedly trying to divide the country.

Islam is what kept me whole. Knowing that God is there to support me, getting me out of that situation puts my heart at peace. Having patience when in hard times and knowing that the struggles of this world are only temporary is reassuring. What has happened to me, and my people is unacceptable, religion should be something everyone is free to practice and indulge in.”