Countries called Thursday on the International Labour Organization to send a mission to China to probe allegations of forced labour and discrimination of ethnic and religious minorities in the Xinjiang region.

The ILO's main annual assembly in Geneva gathered representatives of countries, labour and employers who voiced alarm at charges, vehemently denied by China, of systemic labour violations especially targeting Uyghur and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.

"This is a most serious case involving the state sponsored forced labour of an entire population because of their ethnicity and religion," said workers' spokesman Marc Leemans.

He was addressing a meeting of a committee tasked with assessing China's compliance with global labour practices.

During the session, US Ambassador Sheba Crocker called on Beijing to "immediately end its discriminatory policies and abuses against minority groups".

She and a long line of other country representatives urged China to allow the ILO to send a mission made up of representatives of countries, employers and workers, to Xinjiang, and to provide them with "meaningful, unrestricted and unsupervised access".

The committee is due to decide whether to make such a recommendation next week, and if it does, the ILO's full decision-making body could hammer it through.

- 'Deep concern' -

The call comes just days after the UN human rights chief returned from a long-awaited visit to China, where she asked Beijing to avoid "arbitrary and indiscriminate measures" in its crackdown in Xinjiang.

Thursday's discussion also comes after a group of 20 UN labour experts in February voiced their "deep concern" after evaluating the treatment of ethnic and religious minorities in China.

The committee had evaluated allegations by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) in late 2020 that Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang were systematically being used for forced labour in agriculture.

Rights groups also say at least one million Uyghurs have been incarcerated in "re-education camps" in Xinjiang.

Beijing vehemently denies all such charges, and maintains the camps are vocational training centres aimed at reducing the appeal of Islamic extremism.

- Forced labour -

On Thursday, a number of high-level Chinese representatives took the floor to slam the "unfounded" allegations, with Deputy Minister of Human Resources and Social Security Yu Jiadong decrying that China's accusers were turning ILO into a "platform for a political show".

Yisireuili Saifuding, who presented himself as a Uyghur worker in Xinjiang, meanwhile said he felt "safe and secure in life and at work because of the guarantee provided by the Chinese legislation and practices".

"In Xinjiang, every employee, like me, cherishes his or her job. We also value the opportunities of working in various professions and receiving training at work," he said, insisting the only problem was these "unfriendly countries and organisations which have brought difficulties to our companies by imposing unilateral sanctions."

Zhang Rong, a representative from Xinjiang, rejected that much of the criticism centred on charges of forced labour, which was not supposed to be part of the review, but insisted "there is no so-called forced labour in Xinjiang. Period."

China's ratification of two conventions against forced labour has not been completed, so the committee has only been tasked with evaluating China's adherence to the Convention 111 against discrimination in employment, to which it is party.

Leemans however stressed "there can be little doubt of a centralised program of forced labour on a massive scale based on the religious and ethnic identities of the victims," meaning the alleged abuse fell under Convention 111.

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