Three Special UN Rapporteurs have asserted that approximately one million children belonging to the Tibetan minority are impacted by Chinese government strategies aimed at assimilating Tibetan people culturally, religiously, and linguistically through a residential school system.
Expressing deep concern, the three UN Special Rapporteurs highlighted that in recent years, the residential school system for Tibetan children seems to operate as a mandatory large-scale initiative intended to integrate Tibetans into the dominant Han culture, contravening international human rights standards.
The majority of Tibetan children, totaling around one million, have been forcibly separated from their families, disregarding parental objections, and enrolled in boarding schools within Tibet or distant locations in China. These schools predominantly reflect Han culture in their educational content and environment, with textbooks primarily representing the experiences of Han students and Mandarin Chinese (Putonghua) being the exclusive language of instruction.
Consequently, the UN Special Rapporteurs noted that Tibetan children are experiencing a decline in their proficiency in their native language and are losing the ability to communicate effectively with their parents and grandparents in Tibetan, which contributes to their assimilation and the erosion of their identity.
Moreover, the Special Rapporteurs mentioned the closure of rural schools where Tibetan was the primary language of instruction, replaced by township or county-level schools that predominantly use Putonghua, requiring children to board.
The intention behind this policy, according to the Special Rapporteurs, is the enforced assimilation of the next generation of Tibetans into Han Chinese culture, leading to the erasure of their Tibetan cultural, religious, and linguistic heritage. Others have labeled it as cultural genocide.
This post is based on the information of the magazine “Bitter Winter”.