Gulbahar Haitiwaji worked as an engineer in the Uyghur Region before leaving with her two daughters to join her husband in France, where he had sought asylum. In 2016, she was tricked into returning to China and vanished into the detention camps. Haitiwaji’s daughter, French citizen Gulhumar, campaigned tirelessly for her mother’s release. In 2019, after enduring two years in the camps and half a year under house arrest, Haitiwaji was allowed to return to France. Her book, “How I Survived a Chinese ‘Reeducation’ Camp,” is the first published account of the brutalities faced by the Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples inside the camps. It has been translated into English and 12 other languages. Haitiwaji testified before the Uyghur Tribunal in London in 2021 and the US Congress in March 2023.
