“Rape Culture” and Abuses in Tibetan Reeducation Camps

“Rape Culture” and Abuses in Tibetan Reeducation Camps
Photo by Kevin Jin via Unsplash  

23-02-2022

Michela Rivellino

China and Human Rights Researcher,

Global Human Rights Defence.

 

Following the February BBC Report on Chinese atrocities against Uyghur women, both the Taiwan Times and Bitter Winter Tibetan correspondents started to shed light on how these brutalities occur not only in Xinjiang but in the Tibetan Autonomous Region as well.

 

Indeed, Tibetan facilities labeled as “transformation through education” camps by the Chinese authorities, have witnessed the same “rape culture” as in Xinjiang, according to which systematic sexual abuses and violence are used as a weapon to annihilate women’s ethnic and religious character. According to detailed accounts obtained by former inmates and detainees, several nuns are subjected to sexual assaults, tortures, beatings, forced military training, and other awful treatments committed by the Chinese guards. Unreasonably, most Tibetan women and nuns have been jailed on the pretext of taking part in protests and pacific demonstrations, for which they are forced to pay the heaviest price.

 

Some shocking evidence has disclosed that several nuns have suffered dog attacks, electric prodding, sticks and cigarette stabbings, group rapes, as much as the so-called “airplane torture”, which implies that women hung from walls and trees while being thrashed and abused by the police and guards. Furthermore, the guards do not provide inmates with the basic needs, denying them access to food and water, and leading many people to death.

The “rape culture” in Tibet has confirmed, once again, China’s responsibility for atrocious crimes, abuses, and other human rights violations.

  

Sources and further reading:

 

Women Routinely Raped in Tibetan Reeducation Camps Too. (2021). ADHRRF.

https://en.adhrrf.org/Women-Routinely-Raped-in-Tibetan-Reeducation-Camps-Too.html.