Uyghur Workers in Xinjiang

Hundreds of Uyghur farmers are manually constructing roads and river banks in the Khotan riverbed near the city of Khotan in Xinjiang province in China. The Khotan river is formed by the union of the White Jade (Yurungkash) and Black Jade (Karakash) rivers and it only carried water during the summer due to melting snow.

There are accusations of still ongoing practice of forced Uyghur labor (Hasha) organized by the local government officials in Xinjiang for the sake of infrastructure development. The Uyghur man and women are working long days with primitive tools and methods spending the nights under the trees by the road side. When an older Uyghur worker was asked about salary, he claimed not being paid anything for the work.