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Tibetan Women. (China has been brutal when dealing with Tibetan
Buddhist nuns and other women)
America
Vol.180 No.1
Jan 2, 1999
p.8
COPYRIGHT 1999 America Press Inc.
Endangered Natasha Ma is the pseudonym of a writer who has taught
English in Tibet and is awaiting an opportunity to return there.
EVER SINCE I taught English in Tibet, I have been concerned about
Tibetan women and their victimization at the hands of the Chinese.
From 1949 on, when China invaded, they have been on the front lines
of their people's nonviolent battle for independence. Tibetan women
planned and led the major uprising against the Chinese occupation in
1959. In 1969 a nun from Nyemo led an uprising that spread to 18
counties and nearly overtook the capital city, Lhasa. Now, 30 years
later, Tibetan women protest because their Chinese aggressors
continue to subject them to violent, abusive treatment.
Tibetan women have stood by their religious leader, the 14th Dalai
Lama. Living among them, I grew to respect their fervent commitment
to their religious convictions. Many have been arrested, sentenced,
tortured and publicly executed. Since 1993 according to Asia Watch,
the number of political arrests of Tibetan Buddhist nuns has sharply
increased. Like monks, they have been targeted because they are the
best educated of the Tibetans and the most outspoken against Chinese
rule in Tibet. Since 1987, they have led nearly half the nonviolent
protests. Detained nuns have been raped and attacked by dogs and
subjected to other forms of torture: temperature extremes and
special "physical training" sessions involving vicious beatings.
When released, they are ordered not to return to their nunneries or
participate in public religious activities.
Five of at least a dozen Tibetan political prisoners who have died
in custody or shortly after release since 1987 have been women.
Yangkyi, 19, died in June 1994. Kelsang, 24, died in February 1995.
Ngawang, 18, died in May 1995. All three Tibetan Buddhist women had
repeatedly been tortured--beaten with sticks, kicked with
steel-tipped boots and shocked with electric cattle prods. Tibet's
youngest political prisoner, 12-year-old Sherab Ngawang, died
immediately following her release in February 1995. Using
sand-filled plastic tubes and electric batons, prison guards had
beaten her so severely that she died from malfunction of the kidneys
and lungs.
Women as young as 14 and as old as 75 are imprisoned and tortured in
an effort to make them give the names of their pro-independence
organizers. A trial after arrest is rare, and there is no right to a
lawyer. Nevertheless, Tibetan nuns are protesting more than ever
because of China's campaign since January 1997 to force them--and
Tibetan monks--to denounce the Dalai Lama. Many have been expelled
from their religious institutions for failure to do so. Human Rights
Watch/Asia has received reports that it is now official policy to
prevent prospective monks and nuns from entering religious
communities.
Victims of Forced Sterilizations and Abortions.
Outside of the nunnery and prison, Tibetan women are ill-treated as
well. Many young girls are forced into prostitution, and married
women are subjected to coerced sterilizations and abortions for
becoming pregnant "without permission." China legally injects women
who are nine months pregnant, and infants still in the birth canal
are killed by lethal injection. Family planning is rare; information
on contraception is seldom made available; sterilization and
abortion are presented as the only solutions. The alternative often
given women is payment of a fine of more than five years' annual
salary.
The Mother and Child Health Law, which can prohibit marriages and
births according to China's assessment of the mental and physical
health of the parents, was adopted in 1994 by China's National
People's Congress. Children of political prisoners interned in
psychiatric hospitals may be sterilized because of an alleged family
history of mental or physical illnesses.
The Tibetan Government in exile received an official Chinese
document in 1995 that orders force to be used to implement birth
control policies in Tibet's eastern region of Amdo "in order to
suppress the reproduction of the Tibetan population." Doctors and
local officials are rewarded monetarily for meeting quotas. Clearly
the Chinese Government is violating Tibetan women's fundamental
rights to reproductive choice and adequate health care. China's
birth control policy on Tibetans puts women's health at risk and
threatens the cultural survival of the Tibetan race. With a
population of only six million, Tibet should be exempt from China's
"one family one child" policy, which officially covers only
nationalities in China with over 10 million members. Strict
population control and Chinese migration are destroying the culture
of Tibet. Thousands of Tibetan women each year leave their country
for Nepal and India because of China's birth control policy, limited
educational and employment opportunities, imposed restrictions on
religion, threat of imprisonment and sexual abuse. Deyong, a
13-year-old girl, died from exposure in December 1996 on a 5,700
meter-high Himalayan pass leading from Tibet to Nepal. She is not
the first--and will not be the last--Tibetan woman to pay the
ultimate price for freedom and justice.
Christians Respond.
Because of the work of Tibetan Buddhist nuns and lay women who
continue to protest, the world is learning that China is committing
atrocities against Tibetan women. As Buddhism spreads in the United
States and Europe, numerous opportunities are arising for Christian
teachers and professionals to minister among Tibetans, whose abuse
deserves the attention of Christians worldwide.
In 1996 the International Campaign for Tibet launched an interfaith
network to bring together religious communities in support of Tibet.
Since then, each faith community has worked among its own members to
call attention to the situation there, through the passage of
resolutions or by hosting Seders and other events. In April 1997 the
Dalai Lama--leading religious and moral leaders from all faiths--and
thousands of other caring Americans, gathered at the National
Cathedral in Washington, D.C., to rededicate themselves to securing
for all the world's people the right to freedom of religion and
cultural survival.
Three months later the 72nd General Convention of the 2.4
million-member Episcopal Church in the United States passed a
resolution affirming the importance of Tibetan culture and religion
that teaches nonviolence and peacemaking as a way of life. The
resolution expressed "concern for the safety and future" of the
Tibetan people and urged direct dialogue between the Chinese
leadership and the Dalai Lama.
Christian compassion is leading many to speak out against those who
are victimizing Tibet's women. And with compassion deeply embedded
within Tibetan Buddhist religion and culture itself, we should find
common ground as we meet Tibetans at their point of greatest need
today. The church is, after all, mandated to seek justice for the
oppressed. But at the very time when the Chinese are stepping up
their campaign of cultural and religious annihilation in Tibet,
powerful corporate interests in the United States are pressing the
Clinton Administration--in the interest of profit--to turn a blind
eye to human rights abuses there.
In September 1997 the International Relations Committee of the U.S.
House of Representatives held hearings on religious persecution
around the world. Tsultrim Dolma, a Tibetan nun, spoke of the
torture and imprisonment she suffered for calling for the release of
monks and nuns who protested the lack of religious freedom in Tibet.
Legislation has been introduced by Senator Arlen Specter (Republican
of Pennsylvania) and Representative Frank Wolf (Republican of
Virginia) that would create a White House position to monitor levels
of religious persecution and have the power to impose sanctions
against offending countries.
In October 1997, moreover, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
demonstrated concern for Tibet by appointing Gregory Craig as
special coordinator for Tibetan issues--a first-of-its-kind
position. Her actions are backed by an increasingly powerful
bipartisan coalition in Congress. Mr. Craig's task is to promote
human rights for Tibetans, to preserve their unique religious,
cultural and linguistic heritage and to encourage dialogue between
the Chinese Government and the Dalai Lama.
Women worldwide are victims of discrimination and violence. But the
Tibetan women's struggle is directed toward the stopping of genocide
and reclaiming their occupied homeland. According to Tibet's
Government in exile, they are first and foremost victims of forced
military occupation, accounting for nearly a third of the hundreds
of political prisoners held in Tibet. Under Chinese occupation, they
cannot exercise their fundamental civil and political rights. They
are discriminated against as a minority and tortured as prisoners of
conscience. As noted above, they are subjected to unfair birth
control policies, as well as exposure to life-threatening toxic
materials and environmental hazards stemming from nuclear testing
and dumping. And they are discriminated against in educational and
employment opportunities.
China has signed the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms
of Discrimination Against Women, but it continues to perform coerced
sterilizations and abortions on Tibetan women and to condone the
rape and torture of Tibetan nuns. This year the United Nations will
examine China's compliance with this convention. In the meantime,
Christians and human rights organizations worldwide are speaking out
more and more against those who victimize the women of Tibet.