Around one million Tibetan children have been separated from their families and forced to assimilate into China’s dominant Han culture by being enrolled into government-run residential schools, UN human rights experts said on Monday.
In a statement on Monday, three independent rights experts said they were “very disturbed” to find that, in recent years, the boarding school system for Tibetan children appeared to be a shell to cover up the government’s “mandatory large-scale programme,” which was set up with the intention of assimilating Tibetans into majority Han culture “culturally, religiously and linguistically.”
The Report’s Findings
- Educational content and environment are built around the majority Han culture,
- Textbook content solely reflects lived experience of Han students,
- Tibetan children are forced to complete a ‘compulsory education’ curriculum in Mandarin,
- No access to traditional or culturally relevant learning,
- Government-run Putonghua language schools do not provide a substantive study of the Tibetan language, history, and culture,
- Substantial increase in the number of such schools and students in and outside Tibet,
- Reversal of formerly accommodative, inclusive policies.
In addition, the report found that several rural schools in areas dominated by the Tibetan population were closed down and replaced with schools that almost exclusively communicated in Putonghua.
UN 🇺🇳 experts make a strong statement on Tibet 👇🏽
— Uyghur Human Rights Project (@UyghurProject) February 6, 2023
"We are very disturbed that [...] the residential school system for Tibetan children appears to act as a mandatory large-scale programme intended to assimilate Tibetans into majority Han culture."https://t.co/ibhFU0Da7h
Implications of Assimilation
The experts opined that this has led to Tibetan children losing their “native language and the ability to communicate easily with their parents and grandparents in the Tibetan language,” which further “contributes to their assimilation and erosion of their identity.”
The move is deemed contrary to “prohibition of discrimination and rights to education, linguistic and cultural rights, freedom of religion or belief, and other minority rights of the Tibetan people.”
“This call re-affirmed the idea of building a modern and strong socialist state based on a single Chinese national identity. In this context, initiatives to promote Tibetan language and culture are reportedly being suppressed, and individuals advocating for Tibetan language and education are persecuted,” the UN experts said.
#China has forced nearly 1 MILLION #Tibetan schoolchildren into state-run boarding schools, where they're CUT OFF from their language, religion, culture and families--and now UN experts are raising the alarm
— International Campaign for Tibet (@SaveTibetOrg) February 6, 2023
Learn more: https://t.co/3hDnuL82KM pic.twitter.com/E7PxGbgiva
History of Erasure
In August 2021, the Central Conference on Ethnic Affairs called on all minority ethnic groups in China to always prioritise the interests of the Chinese nation.
To this end, initiatives to promote the Tibetan language and culture are suppressed, with “individuals advocating for Tibetan language and education” being persecuted.
The UN noted in its latest report that the call “re-affirmed the idea of building a modern and strong socialist state based on a single Chinese national identity.”
In November, UN officials wrote to Beijing authorities regarding the issue and have remained in contact for further developments.