In addition to mistreating detained women, rights groups and experts say Beijing has pursued a campaign to erase Muslim culture in Xinjiang, by pushing interethnic marriages and sending Chinese officials for "home stays" with Muslim families, part of efforts by president Xi Jinping's government to assimilate ethnic minorities.
All of this
amounts to genocide as laid out by the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, said Rushan Abbas, founder and executive director of the Washington-based Campaign for Uyghurs.
"And as with so much in Chinese culture, women are being targeted, as they are viewed as less valuable," said Ms Abbas, who said her sister was abducted in Xinjiang a year ago and has not been heard from since.
Some allegations extend further back. After the Urumqi riots in 2009, which analysts say triggered the harsh security measures now in place across Xinjiang, Islamic studies student Ruqiye Perhat was held in various prisons for four years.
There, the Uighur woman says, she was repeatedly raped by Han Chinese guards, resulting in two pregnancies.
