Re-education through labor

Re-education through labor (RTL; simplified Chinese: 劳动教养; traditional Chinese: 勞動教養; pinyin: láodòng jiàoyǎng), abbreviated laojiao (simplified Chinese: 劳教; traditional Chinese: 勞教; pinyin: láojiào) was a system of administrative detention on mainland China. Active from 1957 to 2013, the system was used to detain persons who were accused of committing minor crimes such as petty theft, prostitution, and trafficking of illegal drugs, as well as political dissidents, petitioners, and Falun Gong followers. It was separated from the much larger laogai system of prison labor camps.

Sentences under re-education through labor were typically for one to three years, with the possibility of an additional one-year extension. They were issued as a form of administrative punishment by police, rather than the judicial system. While they were incarcerated, detainees were frequently subjected to a form of political education. Estimates of the number of RTL detainees on any given year range from 190,000 to two million. In 2013, approximately 350 RTL camps were in operation.^[1]

On 28 December 2013, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress abolished the re-education through labor system and detainees were released.^[2][3] However, human rights groups have claimed that other forms of extrajudicial detention have taken its place, with some former RTL camps being renamed drug rehabilitation centers.^[4]

In 2014, re-education facilities were constructed in Xinjiang and they were used to target a wider context than people who were accused of committing minor crimes and political dissidence.^[5] By 2017, these had become the massive Xinjiang internment camps holding 1–3 million people, utilizing forced labor, and now recognized as re-education camps by many nations, intergovernmental organizations such as the UN and EU, and human rights groups.^{[citation needed]}

By October 2019, “students” held in these camps or “vocational education and training centers” were all released and these camps were closed. ^[6][7]