Locked away, forgotten: Muslim Uighur wives of Pakistani men
ISLAMABAD — The last time Chaudhry Javed Atta saw his wife was over a year ago — the Pakistani trader in dried and fresh produce was leaving their home in northwestern China’s heavily Muslim Xinjiang region to go back to his country to renew his visa.
He remembers the last thing she told him: “As soon as you leave, they will take me to the camp and I will not come back.”
That was August, 2017. By then, Atta and Amina Manaji, from the Muslim ethnic Uighur group native to Xinjiang, had been married for 14 years.
Atta is one of scores of Pakistani businessmen __ and he says there are more than 200 __ whose spouses have disappeared, taken to what Chinese authorities tell them are education centres.