The lawyer for a Chinese woman who attracted international attention after she fled to Kazakhstan and spoke publicly about working in Chinese internment camps says his client has left for Sweden, where she expects to get political asylum.

Sayragul Sauytbay had been in Kazakhstan for more than a year; the Central Asian country refused to grant her asylum.

Lawyer Aiman Umarova told The Associated Press that Sauytbay, an ethnic Kazakh, and her husband and two children who are Kazakh citizens, flew out of Kazakhstan's principal city Almaty on Monday. Sweden issued her an aliens' passport, Umarova said.

An estimated 1 million Muslim Uighurs, Kazakhs and other minorities are believed to be held in Chinese internment camps.

Sauytbay testified last year that she had been forced to work in an indoctrination camp.