Two Tibetan delegates attending the Fourth East Asian Women's Forum in Taipei yesterday appealed to Taiwanese reporters to visit Tibet independently rather than accept an invitation by Chinese authorities.
The delegates, speaking on the forum's final day, said, "We appeal to the Taiwanese reporters to go to Tibet on their own. They will never see the truth about Tibet at China's invitation."
The remarks follow an invitation made some weeks ago by Chinese authorities to reporters from 15 media organizations in Taiwan. They were scheduled to leave for Tibet yesterday.
"The Chinese authorities will hide their violations of the human rights of the Tibetan people. The Chinese officials won't show reporters how the Tibetan people are abused by China," said Passang Dolma, joint secretary of the Tibetan Women's Association, based at Dharamsala in India.
Passang Dolma and Dolkar Lhamo, the association's president, came to Taipei to attend the forum and raise the plight of Tibetan women with hundreds of female delegates and participating members of the public from 10 countries in East Asia and the US.
Before leaving Taiwan yesterday, they told the Taipei Times that they were concerned that China's arrangements for the visit by Taiwanese journalists would fail to give the Taiwanese an understanding of the true plight of the Tibetan people.
They expanded on these remarks with a catalogue of alleged Chinese abuses, including reproductive rights violations, forced abortions, employment discrimination, religious persecution and sexual harassment in school and in the workplace.
One of the most disturbing discriminatory practices against Tibetan women, according to the delegates, is "virginity testing."
"The purpose of the test is to determine a job applicant's fitness for employment," Dolkar said, adding, "This horrible discrimination targets only Tibetan women."
"The test is done by putting a hand inside a woman to check for virginity. Women and girls that pass the test have to sign a contract promising that they will not get married or engage in sexual activity for three years," she said.
The "virginity test" has been practiced for the last five years, according to Passang.
"Not only do Chinese officials take advantage of the test to abuse Tibetan women, but so do Chinese school teachers to abuse Tibetan girls," Passang said. "This forces some women and girls into prostitution due to scarcity of employment and the disgrace of being abused."
"Every year, over 2,000 girls, boys, monks and nuns from Tibet try to cross the border into India to seek educational opportunities and religious freedom," Passang said, "but many girls suffer sexual harassment from the Nepalese or Chinese border police."
"We are very concerned about the problems of prostitution, sexually transmitted diseases and HIV in Tibet.
"It was estimated in 1998 that over 658 brothels existed on the 18 main streets of the Tibetan capital Lhasa.
"Most of the prostitutes are Chinese migrants, but the number of Tibetan prostitutes is growing and this worries us," Passang said.
Massive migration of Chinese to Tibet has not only resulted in the fostering of prostitution, but also threatens the unique Tibetan culture and religion, according to Dolkar and Passang.
"Migration to Tibet is the most serious problem facing Tibet," they said.
RSS