“I was grazing yaks on the pasture. We heard something hissing over our head. It was the sound of bullets. We saw the Chinese army on the hill, on the roadside and they were everywhere…. We heard the cracking of gun shooting and artillery some times. That day I thought I would get killed.”
15 year old Lithang County, 2009
A new report on the rights of children in Tibet has revealed that Tibetan children are “victims of arbitrary arrest, imprisonment, and torture for their political and religious beliefs, and face punishment because of the activities or beliefs of their family members.”
The 29-page report, Growing up under China’s occupation: The plight of Tibet’s Children, released by Free Tibet and Tibet Watch, was submitted to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on 10 December to mark Human Rights Day.
The report details multiple cases of Tibetan children’s rights abuse and shows that children involved in non-violent protests have been subject to violence, and in some cases use of lethal force by Chinese authorities. It further documents China’s “frequent, systematic and severe violations” of its commitments under international law. This is despite the fact that China is a signatory to the International Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UN’s Committee on the Rights of the Child.
The report also shows that children’s rights are violated by China’s use of education as a tool to implement their One-China policy and inculcate loyalty to the Chinese state, and to denigrate Tibetan cultural identity and values, including compulsory “patriotic re-education” campaigns. Restrictions on Tibetan language as the language of instruction in schools deny children the right to enjoy their own culture and language, and has a detrimental effect on Tibetan children’s ability to flourish in their education.
The report comes at a time when Tibetan children are increasingly involving themselves in the struggle for freedom with their growing participation in the ongoing wave of self-immolation protests. Bhenchen Kyi, a 17-year-old schoolgirl became the latest Tibetan to self-immolate when she set herself on fire in Tsekhog on 9 December. The report notes that over two thirds of the 95 Tibetans who have self-immolated since 2009 demanding freedom and the return of the His Holiness the Dalai Lama are younger than 25 and have only ever known life under Chinese rule.
“A number of children, Tibetans under 18 years of age, have set themselves on fire in protest, some of whom have been confirmed dead,” the report says. “These acts of self-immolation are driven by the lack of recourse to freedom of expression, political or legal redress and must be seen as evidence that China’s policies are not only failing Tibet’s children and young people but China’s policies in Tibet are directly causing serious violations of the Convention.”
The report makes a number of proposals and recommendations to the Chinese government to address children’s right violations in Tibet, including to “immediately and unconditionally release Tibetan children imprisoned for exercising their basic civil and political rights”. It also calls on China to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross “full and unrestricted access” to places of detention and “immediately abolish” patriotic re-education campaigns and prohibit the use of re-education through labour for child detainees.
Releasing the report, Free Tibet and Tibet Watch Director Stephanie Bridgen said, “normal life and normal childhood doesn’t exist in militarily occupied Tibet. The children of Tibet face all the challenges of life under occupation, and in many cases are full participants in the struggle to resist it. That means they are also victims of the systematic and ever-present abuse of human rights in Tibet. On Human Rights Day, we hope we have been able to shine a light on victims whose suffering and struggle is rarely seen.”
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