Female rights activists from Xinjiang, Tibet speak out against China's repression on women

Female human rights activists from Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong together have called China the worst human rights violator and highlighted its forceful repression of women at the UN Human Rights Council. At the 54th UN Human Rights Council titled "Findings of the UN Women's Rights Committee on China: Perspectives of affected communities", the female human rights activists mentioned China's 2023 review by the UN Women's Rights Committee in a side event. 

Earlier, in May, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in its final observations based on experts' recommendations asked China to ensure the safety of women's rights in order to comply with the Convention. The committee has also emphasised a list of a series of areas of concern and recommendations which included abolishing the coerced residential (boarding) school system imposed on Tibetan girls and authorising the establishment of and subsidising private Tibetan schools.

Female human rights activists speak on China's violation at UNHRC

While sharing her insights on Uyghur women, Zumretay Arkin said, "According to the report (UN) and our own reporting, Uyghur women are facing multiple challenges such as extrajudicial detentions in concentration camps. We estimate that around 3 million Uyghur and Turkic people and of course among these numbers there are also women and children." Further, she added, "Beyond this, there are also forced marriages between Uyghur women and Han (Chinese) men who are also receiving incentives and subsidies from the government to encourage these inter-ethnic marriages." Notably, Arkin is associated with the World Uyghur Congress which is known for raising issues related to Uyghur children's separation from their parents. 

The CEDAW recommendations on Uyghur women in the Xinjiang province have also asked China to end, prevent and criminalise the use of coercive measures, such as forced abortions, forced sterilisations, other forms of gender-based sexual violence and other cruel, inhuman or degrading family planning practices that are allegedly inflicted on women in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and in predominantly Uyghur-populated areas.

Meanwhile, a Tibetan-born human rights and climate activist Pema Doma has stressed the issue of coerced residential (boarding) school system imposed on Tibetan girls. She said, "The Chinese government has shown an unwillingness to listen to the international committee's calls to listen to the voices of Tibetans from inside Tibet and around the world and that actually highlighted the reason why it's more crucial now than ever for international communities and governments to come out and say `this is wrong' – the separation of over 1 million Tibetan children from their mothers and families - `this is not right'."

Linda Wong, a lawyer from Hong Kong and Faye Chan of Chinese Human Rights Defenders virtually joined the event.

The UN recommended in the report that Beijing must ensure girls and women from ethnic minorities have access to instruction in their mother tongue, such as Tibetan, Uyghur and Kazakh and reverse the closure of schools providing instruction in minority languages.

(With inputs from ANI)