I am Losang Rabgey from the International Committee of Lawyers for Tibet (ICLT). I should let you know first that shadow reports dealing with Tibet have been submitted to the CEDAW experts by the Tibetan Government in Exile (TGIE) and a NGO Mission consisting of the ICLT, the WomenÆs Commission for Refugee Women and Children and the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD).

As well, His Holiness the Dalai LamaÆs Representative in Geneva , Chungdak Koren and Nawang Rabgyal, the Director for United Nations and Political Affairs at the Office of Tibet based in New York are here with us today and they will answer any questions you may have later on for TGIE.

I will begin by saying that we are deeply disappointed in ChinaÆs inadequate and inaccurate answers to many of the expertÆs questions. Indeed, torture, which is an issue of critical importance for Tibetan women, is not addressed at all by the Chinese. Their silence is perhaps not surprising given that the Chinese Representative Ambassador Ching himself stated in this morningÆs session that though womenÆs rights may be human rights, the CEDAW sessions are not appropriate arenas for discussing human rights violations.

We are also disappointed with the lack of willingness on the part of many committee members to raise the well-documented and critical problems faced by women in Tibet now. However, we do welcome the suggestion of the German expert Ms Schopp-Shilling who proposed that the Special Rapporteur on violence against women (VAW) be invited to Tibet and to China. We also note the strong questions raised by the South African expert Ms Myakayaka-Manzini about the condition of Tibetans under China.

ChinaÆs report to the CEDAW Committee (CC) failed to address the critical issues of concern for Tibetan women and the report also misstated many facts. For example, while China claimed that the population control policies and practices are voluntary, many women in Tibet and China are coerced into following the policies. There is severe harassment, exorbitant fines and sometimes women are physically detained.

While China claims that there is freedom to pursue any religions beliefs, at the same time, they have launched a new campaign on atheism and are suppressing religion in Tibet. Similarly, while China told the committee it has special policies to protect women prisoners, recent human rights reports demonstrate that the majority of women interviewed suffered severe torture.

Similarly, only two weeks after signing the Convention on Political and Civil Rights, the Chinese government arrested people involved with forming a democratic party in China. And so while time is running out for the survival of the Tibetan culture and people, the CEDAW committee fails to clarify to the Chinese that its violations of womenÆs rights are unacceptable tot he international community.

We call on the UN to truly fulfill its mandate and work to end the violations of basic rights such as the right to adequate health care and freedom from torture and reproductive rights violations. We have interviewed women who have been coerced into having unwanted abortions in their third trimester. There are also accounts of infants that were given lethal injections in the skull immediately following a live birth.

The UN was created in response to the holocaust with the express aim of preventing states in the future from committing atrocities against humanity. The UN system so far has failed Tibet and so we call on the UN to implement its moral mandate to help end the violence and discrimination against Tibetan women and to assist us in the preservation of our culture which is our right as enshrined in the convention.

Though we are pleased that the CEDAW process now includes the voices of NGOs, we believe that the committee has not yet made our concerns clear enough to the Chinese delegation. We welcome the suggestion made by many of the experts to disseminate the CEDAW document in the local language. These important UN documents are not freely disseminated in Tibet under China. On this note, Tibetans in exile have now translated the following documents in Tibetan: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the CEDAW and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. These translations in Tibetan language are also available on the UN Web Site as part of the 50th Anniversary of the UDHR.

Whereas the UN has supported the Tibetan right to self-determination as early as the early 1960s, we deplore the lack of concrete UN action in implementing its own resolutions on Tibet. This inaction has resulted in decades of suffering for the Tibetan people.

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Last updated: 5-Feb-99