Yes, I probably know more than she does, because in six years as the president of the Uyghur Canadian Association, I have been closely involved in the CIDA project. I sent some recommendations to them.
First, they started a project in the southern part of East Turkestan, which is called the Hoten region. Most of the majority are Uyghurs and are very poor people. CIDA initiated a project there, a poverty reduction program, for three or four years. Unfortunately, the program has expired or ended. I received many letters and phone calls from people in Hoten when Canada recalled the poverty reduction program.
As you can see in a lot of information from Amnesty International or in U.S. congressional reports, there is economic discrimination in the region. A CBC journalist, Mr. Anthony Germain, also recently reported from there.
There are no Uyghurs working in industry. There are no Uyghurs in oil and other industrial factories. All of them are employed by the Chinese. Uyghurs are very poor. They are discriminated against. Therefore, nearly 70% of Uyghurs are unemployed.
It is the main reason to continue the poverty reduction program. If you expand it not only in Hoten but, at the same time, in Kashgar and some other regions, first, it would help the local people to start up businesses, and secondly, it would send a strong message to the Chinese government that they're not taking care of their own citizens and are discriminating against them.
I believe the program should continue. That's one suggestion.
The second one is this. For a couple of years, as the Chinese government did in the SARS epidemic, the Chinese government covered up the HIV situation in the Uyghur region. Unfortunately, East Turkestan has now become the crossroads for drug traffickers from the Chinese Golden Triangle to Central Asia and Eurasia. The famous scenic road has now become a drug road. At the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, unfortunately, there are also drugs traffickers from that region, because it is the closest land road to enter into the Kashgar region.
It's the reason HIV is now the biggest problem, or the second biggest problem. Yunan is the number one problem for China, and East Turkestan is the number two problem.
People do not have the economic power to buy drugs. Because of some of the social customs or traditions among the Uyghurs, the biggest problem is that there's a stigma, if I can describe it that way. People are not free to go to the clinic because they are ashamed or afraid.
I made one more suggestion to CIDA to open one clinic, do some checkups, and prevent the further spread of this terrible disease. We should work on this area, because the Chinese government is ignoring the problem.
Recently, last week, the Xinhua News Agency, the official Chinese news agency, said that 17 Uyghurs are infected with HIV every day. It is a huge number.