{"id":244,"date":"2019-12-01T18:23:54","date_gmt":"2019-12-01T18:23:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uyghurmovement.com\/?p=244"},"modified":"2022-03-22T12:41:21","modified_gmt":"2022-03-22T09:41:21","slug":"husband-detained-wife-raises-three-children-alone-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uyghurmovement.com\/?p=244","title":{"rendered":"HUSBAND DETAINED, WIFE RAISES THREE CHILDREN ALONE"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Uyghur couple from Urumqi city in Xinjiang is one of the many undergoing untold miseries due to the state\u2019s discriminatory policies against minorities.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bitter Winter recently spoke to G\u00fclistan (pseudonym), an Uyghur woman from\u00a0Xinjiang<\/a>\u00a0who has to bear the severe burden of raising three children by herself. Her husband is currently under detention.<\/p>\n

G\u00fclistan is a naan-baker by profession. The naan is an oven-baked flatbread, which is a staple food in a traditional Uyghur household. The couple arrived in Urumqi city in 2010 and made their living selling lamb and naan bread.<\/p>\n

Last year in July, her husband was arrested while he was visiting his hometown in Xinjiang\u2019s Hotan\u00a0prefecture<\/a>. Along with 30 other Muslims, he was put in a \u201ctransformation through education\u201d camp. It wasn\u2019t until four months later that G\u00fclistan was allowed to speak with him on the phone.<\/p>\n

With him gone, the burden of managing work and home suddenly fell on her. In addition to daily living expenses, she also had to take care of the shop rent and school tuitions of their children, both of which total up to 8,500 RMB or 1,200 USD per year.<\/p>\n

While being interviewed, G\u00fclistan kept patting her neck and knees, and upon being asked about it, she revealed that she had developed a condition of arthritis last winter. Baking the naan bread requires one to stand for long hours, and to get by, she had to keep at work longer than usual. She shared that she has lost 13 kilograms of weight since last year due to stress and poor health.<\/p>\n

During the interview, she also received a phone call from her husband. He had reached out to ask for winter clothes because he still did not know when he might be released. At the camp, he is being forced to learn how to make the naan bread and stuffed buns (baozi) even though he already knows it. G\u00fclistan thinks this is the government\u2019s way of justifying his prolonged detention.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t dare to say that arresting him is wrong. Otherwise, I, too, will be locked up in a \u2018study class,\u201d G\u00fclistan said wryly. Ever since his arrest, her life has been on lockdown as well. \u201cHome-stay cadres<\/a>\u201d show up now and then to question about her daily activities and interactions with other people. She cannot leave\u00a0town<\/a>\u00a0without seeking permission from these cadres. In the middle of extreme emotional and financial burden, she is also forced to attend flag-raising ceremonies every Monday.<\/p>\n

G\u00fclistan is one of the countless women in China\u2019s Xinjiang where the\u00a0CCP<\/a>\u00a0has put over a\u00a0million Uyghurs<\/a>\u00a0in detention for no reason other than their religious faith. In doing so, the state has inflicted unimaginable emotional and psychological burden on women and children who have been left behind as a result.<\/p>\n

Reported by Li Zaili<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Uyghur couple from Urumqi city in Xinjiang is one of the many undergoing untold miseries due to the state\u2019s discriminatory policies against minorities. Bitter Winter recently spoke to G\u00fclistan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uyghurmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uyghurmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uyghurmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uyghurmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uyghurmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=244"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.uyghurmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":671,"href":"https:\/\/www.uyghurmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions\/671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uyghurmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uyghurmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uyghurmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}