Submission from Independent Tibet Network
SUMMARY
— Independent Tibet Network is a research
and campaigning organisation supporting justice, human rights
and independence for the Tibetan and Uyghur peoples. It operates
internationally and has a prominent internet profile through its
website-www.tibettruth.com— An important aspect of our
work concerns human rights violations resulting from China's coercive
population-control policies, as applying inside Tibet, East Turkestan,
and China. In addition we also monitor and lobby the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office on this subject. — We remain concerned
that this major human rights matter is not being extended, by
the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, any serious examination,
nor being given sufficient exposure in its annual human rights
reports. In particular we express our disappointment that this
subject is entirely absent from the 2008 Report, a step-backwards
from its 2007 Human Rights Report which at least contained a short
tentative paragraph on the issue.
— The Foreign and Commonwealth state
that their work regarding women's human rights is guided by the
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against
Women (CEDAW) along with the Beijing Platform of Action. Yet China's
coercive birth-control program is in clear violation of both these
international commitments, which the FCO considers of such little
importance that it selects not to include it in its Human Rights
Report 2008.
— On violence against women the FCO
claims that: "The UK has been one of the main supporters
of the key UN General Assembly Resolution on Violence against
Women. Working through the UN means that all UN member states
agree international standards on violence against women and take
practical measures to combat it. We were pleased that this was
adopted by consensus".
— All violence that is except forced
sterilisations, a subject which was recognized as constituting
violence against women, by the Beijing Declaration, upon which
the FCO maintains a deathly silence in its report and wider activities
and publications.
— The section of its human rights report
concerning women's human rights, featured a range of issues from
lesbian rights, female genital mutilation, equality to forced
marriage, although China's medical atrocities against women appear
strangely absent.
— Despite including a range of human
rights violations within its section on China, the FCO human rights
report singularly failed to make reference to coercive birth-control
in China. Interestingly such selectivity was not applied to the
Democratic People's of Korea where the FCO Report mentions alleged
abuses as including "forced abortions".
— The deliberate exclusion of what
is a major human rights issue which impacts upon countless numbers
of women in China, Tibet, East Turkestan and other occupied territories,
one that violates a number of key international human rights instruments
(to which China is signatory), cannot be reasonably justified
by the FCO.
— This memorandum scrutinises the background
to these concerns, provides some detail on the existence of medical
atrocities resulting from China's population policies and includes
accounts of coercive birth-control in Tibet, and East Turkestan.
It concludes with a number of recommendations, requesting the
Foreign Affairs Committee to urgently forward to the FCO for their
action.
INTRODUCTION
1. Reference to "Tibet" in this
memorandum refers to the historic, political and cultural regions
of Tibet comprised of U-Tsang, Kham and Amdo. Parts of these territories
were forcefully absorbed and renamed by Communist China into Chinese
provinces, leaving a truncated region, the so-called "Tibet
Autonomous Region". Mention of East Turkestan relates to
the Moslem-Uyghur territory, annexed and renamed by communist
China as "Xinjiang".
2. The current oppression suffered by the peoples
of Tibet and East Turkestan operates through a range of human
rights violations. A central, if under-exposed issue, and one
which the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has disappointingly
chosen not to give any exposure to in its latest Human Rights
Report, is China's coercive population control programme. Despite
claims to the contrary from a number of multi-lateral population
agencies (United Nations Fund for Population, International Planned
Parenthood Federation and Marie Stopes International) by nature,
ideology and application China's birth-control programme remains
inherently coercive. Inflicting upon women a spectrum of abuses
including forced sterilisations:
"From the beginning to the end, each village
and town must give the highest priority to the tubal-ligation
of women who have given birth to two girls, especially within
those villages where these women have not yet had their tubes
tied. We must demonstrate dogged determination and to the bodies
of every cadre. Set the time and set the assignment. On multiple
levels and using different channels, we should obtain information
on spouses who are attempting to flee the county. By hook or crook,
we must carry out contraceptive measures and every village must
meet at least one of its target assignments."
(Speech made by Tian Xiangrong 31 July 2006 Tongwei
County Government (Online—As Documented in the US Congressional
Executive Commission on China-Annual Report 2008.)
3. Such draconian appeals expose an official
tolerance of abuses inflicted by family planning officials, which
appear in China's regional family planning laws:
"...Pregnancies that do not comply with
the legal requirements for childbirths shall be terminated in
a timely manner." (Hunan Province Population and Family Planning
Regulations, Article 22.)
4. Enforcement is also afforded state approval,
a fact reflected in China's Population and Family Planning Law
2002.
"Article 41 Citizens who give birth to babies
not in compliance with the provisions of Article 18 of this Law
shall pay a social maintenance fee prescribed by law. Citizens
who fails to pay the full amount of the said fees payable within
the specified time limit shall have to pay an additional surcharge
each in accordance with relevant State regulations, counting from
the date each fails to pay the fees; with regard to ones who still
fail to make the payment, the administrative department for family
planning that makes the decision on collection of the fees shall,
in accordance with law, apply to the People's Court for enforcement".
"Article 43 Anyone who resists or hinders
the administrative department for family planning or its staff
members in their performance of their official duties in accordance
with law shall be subject to criticism and be stopped by the administrative
department for family planning...."
(Population and Family Planning Law of the People's
Republic of China (Order of the President No 63) September 1,
2002.)
5. It is often asserted by defenders of
the Chinese population programme, and the FCO has long been a
supporter, that a relaxation of such coercive measures were a
part of China's 2002 national family planning law. However, as
indicated by the extracts above there is no sign of moderation
presented nor anything about prohibiting, punishing, or avoiding
coercive practices.
6. Neither does it identify or condemn specific
coercive measures used across China (and occupied territories
such as Tibet and East Turkestan). Significantly though it does
emphasize precise acts obstructing family planning and provision
is made for their punishment.
"China's population planning policies in
both their nature and implementation constitute human rights violations
according to international Standards." (US Congressional
Executive Commission on China-Annual Report 2008.)
7. That coercion remains at the centre of
China's population policies and practice is beyond dispute, yet
the FCO in its decision not to include this issue in its Human
Rights Report seems to disagree. Such a deliberate omission places
the FCO at odds with the findings of the United States State Department's
Country Report on China:
"The government [China] continued its coercive
birth limitation policy, in some cases resulting in forced abortion
or forced sterilization" (US State Department 2008 Human
Rights Report: China Published 26 February 2009.)
8. What is puzzling about the Foreign Office's
exclusion of any reference to this subject, is its awareness of
coercive birth-control abuses within Tibet, East Turkestan and
China. Which have been reported and condemned by bodies such as;
United States Congressional Committee on China, US State Department,
Amnesty International, members of the United States Congress,
Optimus, Foreign Affairs Committee, Human Rights Watch, Independent
Tibet Network, Asia Watch and the British Medical Association.
9. Its action therefore not to give any
prominence to coercive birth-control and related violations; either
through its website, human rights documentation and reports, is
extremely disappointing. The FCO appears indifferent to the existence
of these medical atrocities, despite the findings of internationally
respected human rights bodies:
"Women face forced abortion and sterilization
as part of China's enforcement of its one-child policy".
(Amnesty International USA Press Statement, 20 February 2009.)
10. Nor does it appear to regard the comments
of former United States Secretary of State Colin Powell as investing
the issue with sufficient importance to feature in its Human Rights
Report
"China has in place a regime of severe penalties
on women who have unapproved births. This regime plainly operates
to coerce pregnant women to have abortions in order to avoid the
penalties and therefore amounts to a "program of coercive
abortion." (Comments issued in July 2004 after a US "fact-finding
mission" into China to determine UNFPA's complicity with
China's coercive population control programme.)
11. We would respectfully remind the Foreign
Affairs Committee that Independent Tibet Network have over the
years provided the FCO, Government Ministers, the Department for
International Development and individual Members of Parliament
with detailed information on this issue. Along with members of
the research group, Optimus, we briefed, in 1993, officials of
the China and Human Rights Desks. We also made available reports
including Children of Despair and Orders of the State
(ITN 1992 and 2000 respectively). The latter forming written evidence
to the Inquiry into Relations with China Foreign Affairs
Committee Report on China 2000) submitted also to the Foreign
Affairs Committee (Ninth Report 2007-08). Further information
was made available for that Parliamentary report, including testimony
detailing forced sterilisations of Tibetan women, official Chinese
birth control regulations as applying to Tibet and East Turkestan,
and a critical examination of the role of UNFPA, IPPF and DFID
and the baseless claim that their association with China's population
programme has brought a moderation of coercive practices.
12. A remarkable aspect of this affair is
that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office through its colleagues
at the Department for International Development acknowledge that
violations are occurring as a consequence of China's population
activities:
"It is of course true that abuses in family
planning continue to occur in China." (DFID correspondence
to Independent Tibet Network 20 December 2002.)
13. Although asserting that such abuses
are condemned by Britain, the FCO has failed to make available
any evidence that it has presented to China its official condemnation,
thus we have only an assurance of denunciation.
14. Meanwhile the FCO argues for continued
population agency involvement and financial sponsorship of such
organisations, on the basis that such bodies may exert a moderating
influence, and will remain while the potential for positive change
remains. Such extenuating sophistry flies-in-the face of continued
violations, increased calls for coercion, and a hardening of Chinese
government attitudes to enforce the population programme.
15. On a number of occasions during our
efforts to secure some positive response from the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office, we have been assured that should no moderation
or progress be possible, with respect to China's population programme
that Britain would reconsider its position and association with
agencies working inside China:
"We would only contemplate withdrawal of
support for UNFPA and IPPF activities in China if it became clear
that neither organisation was making any progress in changing
China's population policy and its implementation. (ODA [DFID]
Correspondence to Independent Tibet Network 11 January 1995.)
16. 14 years later such implementation remains
highly coercive, while the policy is inherently draconian.
"Should it become clear that no progress
is being made, the British Government would need to reconsider
its support to UNFPA and IPPF work in China." (FCO Correspondence
to Independent Tibet Network 30 September 1993.)
17. As campaigns of forced sterilisation
are inflicted upon across China, Tibet and East Turkestan the
brutalized women of those territories have witnessed nothing but
state-engineered violence operating under the guise of population
control. So much for progress!
18. Since 1989, in cooperation with Optimus
we have furnished the Foreign and Commonwealth Office with a series
of informative papers and correspondence, that has consistently
appealed for greater exposure of this major human rights violation.
It is therefore not a lack of detailed information that explains
the FCO's virtual silence on this matter, or its regrettable decision
to exclude the issue from its 2008 Human Rights Report.
19. We express our serious concern at this
neglect, of what constitute a pattern of gender-based violence
that Tibetan Uyghur and Chinese women suffer as a consequence
of China's population policies. This includes forced or coerced
sterilizations and forced abortions.
20. Furthermore such abuses take place against
a background of other human rights violations, and in the case
of the Tibetan people a denial of their fundamental right to self-determination,
as recognized by General Assembly Resolution 1723 (XVI) (1961)
and reaffirmed by Resolution 2079 (XX) (1965). Forced sterilisations,
coerced abortions and sterilisations, in tandem with intrusive
monitoring of women's reproductive cycles, constitute acts of
discrimination that violate:
Articles 1 and 2 of the Convention on the Elimination
of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
Article 16(e) of CEDAW specifically guarantees
women the rights:
"to decide freely and responsibly on the
number and spacing of their children and to have access to the...
means to enable them to exercise these rights."
21. At the Fourth World Conference on Women,
the participating governments, including Britain's and China,
recognized and reaffirmed:
"the right to have control and decide freely
and responsibly... matters related to... reproductive health,
free of coercion... and violence." (Beijing Declaration and
Platform of Action, para 96.)
To this end, governments agreed to:
"Take all appropriate measures to eliminate...
coercive medical interventions..." (paras 106(h).)
22. Having collectively agreed and committed
Britain to the terms and agreements of the Platform for Action
and The Beijing Declaration, which rightly defined violence against
women as including:
"...forced sterilisation, and forced abortion,
coercive/forced use of contraceptives..." (Paragraph 115).
the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has virtually
ignored such abuses as there are inflicted women in Tibet, East
Turkestan and China.
23. Television Documentary Exposes Forced
Sterilisations of Tibetan Women:
Tibetan Lady: "Those who can't pay the fine
have to have a sterilisation. If you have good connections you
can buy a sterilisation certificate for around 1,000 Yuan. But
those who don't have any money have to have the sterilisation
whether they like it or not. I was forcibly taken away against
my will."
Tibetan Interviewer: "Did you cry?"
Tibetan Lady: "I cried when I was lying
on the bed after the sterilisation. I cried thinking that I'd
been forced to have a sterilisation when there was nothing wrong
with me. I was feeling sick and giddy and couldn't look up. It
was so painful. Apparently they cut the fallopian tubes and stitch
them up. When they opened me up they pulled them out by the roots.
It was agonising. They didn't use anaesthetic.
They just smeared something on my stomach and
carried out the sterilisation. Apart from aspirin for the pain
there were no other drugs. And then from the day after the operation
I had to look after myself. If I needed a drip I had to pay for
it myself."
Tibetan Interviewer: "Can you show me the
scars from the sterilisation?"
Narration: The woman shows Tash her scars, recounting
how,
Tibetan Lady: "I was so frightened. I can't
even remember how I felt. I wasn't the only one. About half a
dozen women in our village had to undergo sterilisation."
Tibetan Interviewer: "Forcibly?"
Tibetan Lady: "Yes, forcibly. No one would
have done it willingly. They come to the door to fetch you by
force. They threaten to confiscate stoves and anything valuable
from the house. So people get frightened and go for the sterilisation.
Some people were physically damaged by the operation. They have
limps and have to drag their hips. Since then people are too scared
to have many children."
(Interview with a Tibetan women as featured in
the Channel Four Television Documentary, Undercover in Tibet.
Broadcast 28 March 2008.)
24. Interview with Birth-Control Official
in East Turkestan:
Radio Free Asia (RFA: "Your office is proceeding
with the new birth control plan?"
Birth Control Officer 2 in Korla City: "Yes,
we received a new birth control plan, the first of January in
2003, and started our job according to the new plan."
RFA: "If someone is suspected with illegal
pregnancy what would happen?"
Birth Control Officer 2 in Korla City: "We
forcibly make her abort her child"
RFA: "Does it have to be forced? If she
refuse [sic] what will be happen?"
Birth Control Officer 2 in Korla City: "Yes,
it must be forced. If not, how we can control the population?
It is clearly mentioned in our birth control policy."
25. RFA also interviewed women involved
in the UNFPA county project:
RFA: "Usually [do] hospitals explain anything
about the risks of IUDs or abortions?"
Woman: "No... we accept insertion of IUD
because we have to do it. Peasants [are] against birth control
but government workers [are] not."
RFA: "If government workers wanted to have
more children, what would happen?"
Woman: "They have to pay [a] heavy fine
or they will be fired."
RFA: "If the government finds out someone
is illegally pregnant, in spite of the age of [pre-born] baby,
will they force her to do abortion?"
Woman: "Yes, pregnant women will be forcibly
brought to the hospital by birth control officers. Birth control
officials wait for her until the operation is done, because they
want to make sure the baby was killed or not."
RFA: "How do birth control officers find
that someone's pregnancy?"
Woman: "Their job is searching about each
family's private life everyday. They can find out. In case someone
had not been [discovered], all responsibility would [go] on birth
control officer's head."
(Radio Free Asia, Family Planning in Uyghur
Region, 17 March 2003.)
CONCLUSIONS
26. There remains genuine concern in this
country about such medical atrocities, and a deep sense of unease
at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's association with communist
China's birth-control programme, through its support; moral, political,
and financial, of multi-lateral population agencies working there.
27. This was reflected in Parliament on 8 May
2008 by Mr David Amess MP, who rightfully asked if the Foreign
and Commonwealth Office, in its regular discussions with China
had raised the implementation, in Tibet, of the Population and
Birth-planning Law 2002. Responding for the Government Mr Jim
Murphy MP revealed that "We have not discussed the implementation
of China's population and family planning law with the Chinese
Government with specific reference to Tibet...".
28. Although it would seem the FCO claimed
to have raised the One Child Policy during the UK-China
Human Rights Dialogue, no details were forthcoming on the nature
of such discussions. Any hope that the FCO would open up its considerable
files on the subject were not encouraged by Mr Murphy's insistence
that:
"A more detailed survey of all the exchanges
between UK Ministers and officials with Chinese authorities from
2006 would require a search of files held centrally and at all
posts in China, which could be achieved only at disproportionate
cost."
29. Why is the FCO seemingly unable or unwilling
to make available for public or Parliamentary scrutiny details
of its exchanges with China on human rights?
30. Meanwhile, the present policy of dialogue
with communist China (which the FCO claims it regularly raises
"...concerns with the Chinese Government about the implementation
of China's population and family planning law") as a means
of improving human and reproductive rights has proved a singular
failure, as witnessed by ongoing coercive practices inside China,
Tibet and East Turkestan. There is an urgent need to reassess
this aspect of relations with communist China, for the Foreign
and Commonwealth to give full and detailed coverage of this serious
violation of women's human rights, and in so doing restore a much
needed sense of ethics to UK foreign policy.
RECOMMENDATIONS
31. Independent Tibet Network respectfully
requests that the FAC.
32. Given the Foreign Affairs Committee considers
this subject to be a grave violation of human rights, as evinced
by the FAC's Tenth Report (2000) which concluded that:
"...restrictions on reproductive rights
in China re not in keeping with Article 23 of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which give men and women
the right to found a family" (Paragraph 41-Reproductive Rights.)
submit a formal request to the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office that it include, in all future Annual Reports on Human
Rights and China, the issue of China's population control programme
(as applying to Tibet, East Turkestan and China) and a detailed,
forceful and critical analysis, featuring and informed by material
from independent human rights organizations.
33. Call upon the FCO to include, in the
UK-China Human Rights Dialogue, with specific reference to Tibet,
the implementation of China's population and family planning law.
34. Ask the FCO to implement an independent
evaluation involving a forum of relevant and independent organizations
including human rights monitors to more factually and independently
assess the Chinese population programme, as they impact upon Buddhist-Tibetan,
Moslem-Uyghur women, and other subject peoples within Chinese-occupied
territories.
35. Request the FCO to establish an impartial
and credible investigation of the role of IPPF and UNFPA in the
Chinese programme and a realistic assessment of the potential
for change these organizations might deliver.
36. To request the FCO to provide genuinely
independent evidence that UNFPA and IPPF have prevented coercive
practices, including forced sterilisations. Should such a conclusion
not be convincingly demonstrated to honour previous assurances
made by both the FCO and DFID that a withdrawal of UK support
for UNFPA and IPPF would be considered.
37. Call upon the FCO to make available
for Parliament, human rights organisations and/or members of the
public details of exchanges between its officials and Chinese
representatives within the annual UK-China Human Rights Dialogue.
Making available for public examination evidence that the FCO
has formally expressed its condemnation to China concerning coercive
practices within that population programme
38. Demand that FCO urgently establish a
programme linked to future availability of international aid and
involvement aimed at encouraging the Chinese government to switch
their reliance on sterilization and abortion to the use of safe,
effective and voluntary methods of contraception so that the Chinese
programme can be brought into line with CEDAW Articles 1, 2 and
16e, The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Article
7.1 and the Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action, including
Paragraphs. 96, 106 (h) and 115.
14 April 2009
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