IUSY Statement on Tibet

COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS Fifty-sixth session Item 12

Integration of the human rights of women and the gender perspective: (a) Violence against women Oral statement by Ms. Tsering Jampa, International Union of Socialist Youth (IUSY)

Thank you, Mr. Chairperson,

Five years after the adoption of the Beijing Platform for Action, violence against women persists and in some countries has intensified. Such violence is often overt, as in the stoning of women who violated strict codes conduct imposed on the population. In its worst forms, women are systematically raped as a way of trying to eliminate ethnic groups from a region. On the other hand, violence is often more covert and incremental, especially in places where discrimination based on race or religion is taking place. In such places, women are often the target of discrimination against them both because they are women and because they belong to a specific race.

In Tibet, Tibetan women are subjected to systematic violence in the form of forced or coerced sterilization, contraception and abortion, including late-term abortion. These official acts violate Articles 1 and 2 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) which China ratified in September 1980. It contradicts the Declaration of the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995 which reiterated the right of women to determine freely matters relating to their choice of reproduction.

Mr. Chairperson, considering the relatively sparse population in Tibet, the illegal and violent methods of birth control imposed on Tibetan women must be viewed as an attempt to reduce the Tibetan population along with simultaneously transferring in millions of Chinese settlers. In recent times, for example, the Chinese authorities in Karze (Ganzi in Chinese), in south-eastern Tibet (now incorporated in Sichuan province), proposed changes to their existing family planning policies to "reduce the number of children allowed to Tibetans". The proposal call for a reduction in the numbers of children that Tibetan workers and urban residents in the prefecture can have from two to one and from three to two for farmers and herders. There are also reports that "reduced child quotas" are also being imposed on Tibetans in some areas of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and Gansu and Qinghai provinces, which comprise part of the Tibetan area of Amdo. Reductions in the number of children permitted would enable the local authorities to collect extra revenue from Tibetans in the form of penalties and fines for "excess" children.

Refugee interviews of Tibetan women and health care workers confirm that women who have two or more children are being routinely sterilized, and that coercive measures are being used to accomplish this. One Tibetan from Chamdo County reported that a birth control campaign launched in 1998 targeted women regardless of their family size. Women who resisted sterilizations were threatened with fines of several months' income if they refused. Other penalties for resisting abortions and sterilizations include loss of employment and loss of an unauthorized child's rights to education, health, food and employment. A 1998 report in the Tibet Daily, an official Chinese paper, admitted that a birth control campaign had resulted in 90% of the married women being sterilized in Nyangdren town near Lhasa.

Mr. Chairperson, violence against women also extends to women detainees. In Tibet, women detainees suffer beatings, denial of medical care and forced exercise regimens. Nuns, who constitute the vast majority of women political detainees, often suffer uniquely degrading and sexual forms of torture, such as sexual abuse with electric cattle prods and rape. One nun who arrived in exile in 1999, Norzin Wangmo, spent five years in prison for advocating Tibetan independence. She suffered permanent injury to an eye from beatings in prison. Another nun, Lobsang Dolma, suffered permanent damage to an ear from a beating and was denied medical care for appendicitis. Other refugee reports confirm that Ngawang Sangdrol, serving 21 years in prison for political activities, was beaten so severely after taking part in protests at Drapchi Prison in 1998 that she could barely walk.

In this connection, we wish also inform the Commission that the Chinese authorities have lied to the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women (para. 35 of document E/CN.4/2000/68/Add.1) in its response on the case of Ngawang Sangdrol. The misinformation that demonstrations did not occur in May 1998 at Drapchi prison, in which Ngawang Sangdrol was involved, is contradicted by a August 1998 statement given by Justice Bureau in Lhasa to a delegation of the European Democratic Union (EDU). The Justice Bureau admitted that prisoners began to shout slogans including "Free Tibet!" and "Long Live the Dalai Lama!" during a flag raising ceremony on 1 May 1998. The Justice Bureau also confirmed that prison guards were so frightened that they fired guns into the air to "attract the attention of policeman outside the prison." Eleven prisoners were killed following the two protests, of whom, six were nuns, all in their twenties. Furthermore, the fact that Ngawang Sangdrol's sentence was extended by four years in October 1998 by the Intermediate People's Court in Lhasa, due to her participation in the 1 and 4 May 1998 Drapchi protests, is another clear proof that the prison protests did actually take place.

Mr. Chairperson, the systematic violence against Tibetan women demands international action. The Tibetan people are working to secure fundamental human rights, including their right to self-determination, through a non-violent campaign. If this peaceful course of action fails to engender meaningful international support, then the global community sends the message that only the kind of violence that spiralled out of control in the former Yugoslavia serves to focus world attention on existing conflicts. In conclusion, we urge the Commission to take steps to stop all forms of violence against women, and to intervene on behalf of Tibetan women subjected to systematic torture and violations of their reproductive rights. As a first step, we urge the Commission to adopt a resolution censuring China for its human rights violations in China and Tibet.

Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.

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