Hong Kong (CNN) Children of parents detained in China's vast system of "re-education camps" in the far west region of Xinjiang are being separated from their families and placed in huge, purpose-built boarding schools as part of a "coordinated state campaign" to provide "full-time or near full-time care for all children from a very young age," new research has found.

children are being placed in "highly secured, centralized boarding facilities," whether or not they have other relatives who could serve as guardians. According to independent researcher Adrian Zenz and the BBC children are being placed in "highly secured, centralized boarding facilities," whether or not they have other relatives who could serve as guardians.

Zenz, a German researcher who has emerged as one of the leading experts on China's vast system of camps targeting the Muslim Uyghur minority in Xinjiang, drew on open-source, government documents, both state and private media articles, propaganda and evidence from former detainees.

In one township where ethnic Uyghurs constitute a majority of the local population, government data show that "well over 400 minors have both parents in some form of internment, with many others having one parent interned," Zenz wrote in his report, "Break Their Roots: Evidence for China's Parent-Child Separation Campaign in Xinjiang," he added. The report was published in The Journal of Political Risk.

"Children whose parents are in prison, detention, re-education or 'training' are classified into a special needs category that is eligible for state subsidies and for receiving 'centralized care.' This 'care' can take place in public boarding schools or in special children's shelters."

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