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![]() ![]() Inhumane Treatment of the Child Children possess the same human rights as adults. They are particularly vulnerable to human rights abuse (the results of which can drastically affect their development (and they have been recognised as requiring special protection. Yet, throughout 1997, Chinese authorities continued to arbitrarily detain and torture Tibetan children, to subject them to religious repression and to deny their educational and cultural rights. There are currently 39 known juvenile political prisoners, detained in various prisons in Tibet, as a result of their attempts to exercise their right to freedom of expression. An additional 39 current political prisoners were below the age of 18 at the time of arrest. They are detained in adult prisons, denied legal representation and contact with family, and subjected to severe ill-treatment. A total of 316 child monks have been expelled in connection with the "Strike Hard" campaign during 1996-97, representing about 22 per cent of the total number of expulsions during that period. International law<P> The People's Republic of China signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child(61) (CRC) on August 29, 1990. On December 29, 1991, the PRC ratified the CRC and the Convention formally took effect in China on April 1, 1992. In 1994, in China's initial report of the PRC on its adherence to the CRC, China described itself as a "consistent respecter and defender of children's rights."(62) The CRC makes China as a State Party accountable for its actions towards children and calls on States to create the conditions in which children may take an active and creative part in the social and political life of their country. The CRC explicitly states:.
The child shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child's choice.(Article 13(1), CRC)
States Parties shall respect the right of the child to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.(Article 14(1), CRC)
States Parties recognize the rights of the child to freedom of association and to freedom of peaceful assembly.(Article 15(1), CRC) The CRC also codifies the child's freedom from arbitrary detention and torture, right to education, freedom from discrimination, and the protection of a child's minority rights relating to culture, religion and language. Child Political Prisoners
No child shall be deprived of his or her liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily. The arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child shall be in conformity with the law and shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time.(Article 37(b), CRC)
All three boys were taken to Tsethang Prison, Lhoka, where they were detained incommunicado, each in solitary confinement, for four months. Sonam, only 14 at the time, was sentenced to three years imprisonment while Jampel and Phurbu each received sentences of two and a half years. The three boys were transferred to Toelung Prison, Lhasa City, where, contrary to Article 37(c) of the CRC, they were mixed with adult prisoners of various crimes with the exception of mealtimes. Sonam was released at the age of 17 on August 14, 1996, where as Jampel and Phurbu were released six months earlier. Other child prisoners reported to be still serving their term in Toelung Prison are Pema Choedak, a 16-year-old monk from Phenpo, Lhasa City and Gyakloe, a 17-year-old from Kyimshe village and a monk at Sungrabling Monastery, Phenpo. Nyima Tsering, a 17-year-old from Nyethang, "TAR", is presently in Drapchi Prison, Lhasa. Ngawang Choephel, a 16-year-old monk from Serwa Monastery in Chamdo Region, "TAR", was arrested in July 1997. Ngawang, along with six other monks, reportedly took down the nameplates of the headquarters of the People's Government of the Lingkha Sub-County in Pashoe County, Chamdo, and in its place pasted wall posters that read "Tibet is an independent country". The monks then staged a demonstration calling for independence and human rights and were arrested by Pashoe County PSB. Ngawang was kept in detention for about a month, during which he was said to have been tortured, before being transferred to Chamdo prison where he is still thought to be held. No details of his health or sentence term are known. On December 9, 1994, police arrived at Dechen Sangak Monastery in Dechen town, Taktse County, Lhasa City, and took away Luesang, a 16-year-old monk. Luesang, together with three other monks including 16-year-old Gelek, had made wall posters with Tibetan freedom messages and a handmade Tibetan paper flag and had stuck them on walls around Taktse County. Luesang was taken to Taktse Prison where, for the first three months he awaited the finalisation of his prison term and underwent the worst of his beatings by security guards who hit him on the face and everywhere on the body. After four months Luesang was transferred to Trisam Prison, Toelung (Dechen) County, Lhasa City, in March 1995. There, he was put to hard labour on a construction site filling huge tractors full of gravel stone. He was released in December 1996. The day after Gelek helped Luesang paste posters, he participated in a demonstration with nine other monks around Lhasa's central temple, the Jokhang. Gelek was arrested within a few minutes and is currently serving a prison term of three years in Drapchi Prison. Migmar, a 16-year-old monk originally from Nyethang County, Lhoka, and monk at Tashi Gang Monastery, was only 14 years old when he was arrested. He was released in February 1997 after serving a two year term in Toelung Prison, Lhasa City. The report of 17-year-old Lobsang Tenchong being sentenced to five years imprisonment was received in January 1997. Lobsang, a monk from Rapten Monastery in Rong Village, Nagchu Region, "TAR", was arrested in early 1996 for pasting wall posters which condemned the Chinese choice of Panchen Lama and praised the Dalai Lama. Lobsang, who is originally from Maho, is serving his sentence in Sangyip Prison, Lhasa. In May 1995 Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, who was six years old at the time, disappeared with his parents from their home, after the announcement that the boy had been recognised as the 11th Panchen Lama ( Tibet's second highest spiritual leader ( by the Dalai Lama. It was a year later that Chinese authorities admitted that they were holding the child, when they said, "He has been put under the protection of the government at the request of his parents." Since then there has been no further news of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, who turned eight years old on April 25, 1997, and his whereabouts remain unknown. China has not responded to consistent requests that international monitors be permitted to visit with him or his family. He is the youngest known political prisoner in the world. Education in Tibet Children's right to education is recognised in several universal instruments. Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides the foundation for the right:
Everyone has the right to education. Education should be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. The PRC is also specifically bound under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) to observe the right of all to education (Art. 13) and has a positive duty to take steps to fulfil this obligation "to the maximum of its available resources" (Art. 2(1)). Article 28 of the CRC emphasises the child's right to education on the basis of equal opportunity and the State's duty to ensure that at least primary education is made free and compulsory for every child. In addition, Article 30 of the CRC states:
In those states in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities or persons of indigenous origin exist, a child belonging to such a minority or who is indigenous shall not be denied the right, in community with other members of his or her group, to enjoy his or her own culture, to profess and practise his or her own religion, or to use his or her own language.(Article 30, CRC) Interviews were conducted by the TCHRD, in Spring 1997, with 50 Tibetan children who had fled from Tibet in the previous two or three years. The resulting report, The Next Generation: The State of Education in Tibet Today, revealed the imposition of prohibitively high school fees, the phasing out of Tibetan language and culture, discrimination, indoctrination lessons and excessively cruel punishments. The children interviewed by TCHRD ranged in age from nine to 21 years and represented all three provinces of Tibet. Ninety-six per cent of them had fled Tibet for reasons of education. Roughly one third of the school-aged children in Tibet continue to receive no education at all, compared with just 1.5 per cent of Chinese children.(63) This is due not only to the remoteness of some Tibetan regions ( most new schooling is built in Tibetan urban centres and is designed for the children of Chinese settlers ( but also to the prohibitively high school fees charged by the Chinese authorities and discrimination against Tibetan children in school admission. Despite the CRC's requirement that primary education should be free and accessible for every child, 83 percent of the interviewed students who had received primary education in Tibet paid school fees of between 20 to over 6,000 yuan (approx. US$ 2.50 - $725) a year. Thirty-nine per cent of the interviewed students who had attended school in Tibet also reported that they had to pay bribes to their teachers or the authorities. The phasing out of Tibetan language in schooling, in conjunction with other practices in schools reveals an ominous trend to "sinicise" Tibetan children. In April 1997, officials in the "Tibet Autonomous Region" announced that Tibetan language would no longer be the sole language for education in primary schools and implied that in some cases Chinese would actually replace Tibetan altogether as the language of medium. Of the TCHRD survey group, 53 per cent of the students who attended a primary school were taught in Chinese. Of the interviewed students, who attended a middle school in Tibet, only 17 per cent attended schools where the main teaching language was Tibetan. Even in Tibetan language classes, lessons were reportedly conducted in Chinese. The same pattern is evident at the tertiary level; following announcements in December 1996 all except one of the 17 courses at Tibet University are now being taught in Chinese(64). Sources in Lhasa reported that the University's Tibetan Language Department were not taking any new students for the academic year of 1997-98. Tibetan children attending Chinese schools are receiving almost no education on their Tibetan cultural heritage. Of 38 Tibetan children interviewed who had been to a school in Tibet, only three reported to have had any education on Tibetan culture, religion or history. Most students reported that they were constantly indoctrinated about the greatness of Mao Zedong (Mao Tse Tung), Li Peng, Chinese socialism and China's achievements in general and that if they chose not to answer ideological questions "properly", they risked failure or beatings. All of the children interviewed who had attended government-sponsored primary schools reported that they were not allowed to honour any Tibetan holidays except for the Tibetan New Year and were forced to celebrate Chinese holidays, even in schools where there were no Chinese students at all, and 78 percent of these reported that they were also forbidden to wear Tibetan clothes to school. Some students told how they were forbidden to worship the Dalai Lama, to visit a temple, to eat Tibetan food or to read books in Tibetan language, while others told of being coerced by teachers to go home and spy on their family to see if they discussed the Dalai Lama or Tibetan independence. Monastic education has also been targeted for repressive Chinese policies in Tibet. As part of the Chinese "Strike Hard" campaign, the number of student monks and nuns has been strictly limited and it is common for parents to have to pay high bribes to Chinese authorities to have their child admitted to a monastic school. In 1997, 333 initiate monks and nuns under the age of 18 were expelled - an increase of 12.5 per cent on 1996 when 280 such expulsions occurred. Torture of Children
No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.(Article 37(a), CRC) In contravention of provisions in the CRC and the UN Convention Against Torture, to which China is also a State Party, many of the juvenile prisoners in Tibet are subjected to torture (see above section). In addition, recent child refugees describe a variety of brutal punishments implemented in Chinese-administered schools in Tibet. Reports of being made to clean drains, wash teachers' clothing and clean industrial areas were received from the interviewed students. Even primary school students - children between six and 12 years - were subjected to beatings using rubber clubs, whips, belts, electric wires, chair legs, whole chairs, bamboo sticks and other instruments. One boy, now 12 years old, remembers the time a Chinese student told a Chinese teacher that he had made him fall: "The teacher mixed sand with pieces of broken glass and water. I had to kneel for one hour in this mud. The glass cut into my knees and into my feet. It hurt very much and my knees were bleeding. The teacher told me that if I moved because it hurt I would have to kneel for an even longer time. I still dream about it... I stayed in hospital for four weeks due to some infection. Another Tibetan boy had received the same punishment... The glass had gone all the way to the bone and infected it and later the boy's leg had to be amputated from the knee down." One child reported that all students had to sing the Chinese national anthem, starting at Grade One: "At that time I didn't know the Chinese national anthem at all and for this the teacher forced me to stretch out my lips and then he would hit my lips with a stick." Child Refugees The number of children fleeing Tibet has continued to increase with some 500 refugees under the age of 18 years reaching exile in 1997. In 1996, more than 400 children under the age of 14 fled from Tibet to Nepal.(65) Children of all ages undertake the perilous flight across the Himalayas, often sent by their parents in order, ironically, to receive a better chance of learning of their Tibetan culture, language and history, outside of their homeland. Sadly, many do not survive the journey. For example, on January 19, 1997, Deyang, a 13-year-old girl from Lhasa, died as a result of exposure to extreme cold which subsequently developed into a lung infection. This was Deyang's third attempt to escape from Tibet. Around the same time a boy of the same age died in Kathmandu as a result of injuries incurred crossing the mountains. A 14-year-old boy named Kunga, an aspiring opera dancer from Lhasa died at midnight on January 20, 1997, and just one hour later an eight-year-old girl named Kardon from Nyethang also died. In addition to illness and hypothermia, the children who attempt to flee Tibet risk being beaten, robbed or deported to Tibet by the local authorities. Reports were also received of children being detained and beaten by the Chinese police if caught trying to escape.
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