In this powerful video, a Uyghur woman shares how her four children were taken by the government to state-run orphanages while she was away caring for her ill husband in the Khotan region of the Uyghur homeland. 2024.
Original text:
Hello, dear internet friends. How are you? Are you doing well? Are your precious bodies safe? Is your home peaceful? Please accept my warmest greetings. Be happy. Take care of your precious bodies, stay away from illness, my dear internet friends. It has been exactly 29 days since I left home. After 28 days, I finally found and entered this house. My four children were sitting here waiting for us in this house. Now, these days, I couldn’t see my children off, my dear internet friends.
My children are 12 years old, 10 years old, and 14 years old. Now when I enter this house through the door, the rooms are like this, in this state, so dusty, it felt like a cemetery to me, dear internet friends. Usually, I would prepare my children’s things with my own hands and say, “Goodbye, my child, study well in school!” As a parent, I couldn’t do that, my dear internet friends. My children prepared their own things and left the house in this state. When I enter these rooms, how dark they are! How sad! The house became a place of mourning for me! My dear internet friends, how can I forget this pain? That I couldn’t even say goodbye to my children? Am I even a parent? During those 28 days, I was taking care of my spouse and just brought them home, that’s why the house feels so unpleasant. My heart aches a little that these children of mine couldn’t say goodbye to us, dear internet friends. If there were tickets for death, I wish I could buy one, close my eyes and not feel anything, dear internet friends.
Language: Uyghur language, Hotan dialect
Video collector: Zumret Dawut
Video verifier and documenter: Tahir Imin Uyghurian
Translator: Tahir Imin Uyghurian Video
publication date: September 5, 2024
Original publication platform: Douyin (Chinese version of TikTok)
Distributed platforms: Twitter and other social media platforms ( )
Platform distributed by Uyghur Victims Database: Vimeo and website