Members of China’s LGBTQIA+ community claim they have been sent to government-sanctioned re-education camps. Some say they spent years in the camps and experienced forced conversion therapy, a controversial process of attempting to coerce queer people to become heterosexual. Survivors tell Crikey conversion therapy was carried out in “militarised camps” where they claim they suffered forced electric shock treatment, beatings and other abuse. Some say they were kidnapped and brought to the camps; others escaped, only to be shunned by their families to live in fear and solitude. Survivors provided testimonials to Crikey that when matched with satellite images and government websites linked the camps to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Although the CCP removed homosexuality from its list of psychiatric illnesses in 2001, it hasn’t directly banned the use of so-called conversion therapy.