There have been reports in the past that Uighurs in the Chinese Xinjiang province have been imprisoned in indoctrination camps. According to estimates by the UN, it should be at least one million people. It is mainly about Muslims from the Uighur population, but also from other Muslim minority groups such as Kazakhs and the Hui people.

Now comes information that many of the children of the prisoners are also affected.

Nearly half a million children have been separated from their families and placed in separate boarding schools. This is evidenced by a document published on a Chinese government website, reports The New York Times.

"Winning the Young Generation"

The children's parents and relatives are deemed to be unsuitable guardians and sent off to work in another place or imprisoned in the indoctrination camps.

"The long-term strategy is to conquer, imprison and win over the young generation from the very beginning," Adrian Zenz, who has researched how China separates Uighur families, told The New York Times.

According to the document, the ruling Communist Party aims to run one to two boarding schools in each of Xinjiang's over 800 cities by the end of next year.

The explanation: Fighting poverty

The Communist Party's explanation for the schools is that it is a way of combating poverty when the children's parents cannot take care of them. But the same document also states that the boarding school is a way to "assimilate" and "indoctrinate" children from an early age, without being affected by their families.

At the same time as authorities in Xinjiang have hired thousands of teachers from all over China, several prominent Uighur teachers have been imprisoned.

In addition, Uyghurs are no longer taught to schoolchildren - instead they are taught Chinese. This can be compared to three years ago when only 38 percent of schooling was in Chinese in the region.