Laogai Museum

The Laogai Museum in Washington, D.C.'s Dupont Circle focused on human rights in the People’s Republic of China through the laogai system, which it presented as a vast network of forced-labor prisons and camps used for political repression. Created under the leadership of Chinese dissident Harry Wu, who spent 19 years in laogai prisons, it opened in 2008 with support that included the Yahoo! Human Rights Fund. The museum sought both to educate the public and memorialize victims through exhibits, archives, survivor testimony, and prison-made goods showing how coerced labor entered everyday commerce. After Harry Wu’s death, it closed, briefly reopened, and ultimately shut permanently in 2020.

Washington, District of Columbia · United States