China bullies Tibetan women into sterilisation

Chinese authorities are forcibly sterilising women in Tibet, the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy alleged in New Delhi on Friday.

In a press release, the centre said 308 women in Takar sub district under Lhasa city were forced to undergo sterilisation in just 22 days in October last year. One of these women, identified as Nyima Dolma, 27, died after the operation.

According to people who have come recently from Takar, similar birth-control drives have been launched in Jinup and Nyethang towns in Chushur district, the centre said.

They said officials and doctors from three healthcare centres including the Lhasa city women's hospital arrived at the Takar sub-district in September and instructed the authorities to force women with three children to undergo sterilisation.

A monk, Lhundrup Gaden, who recently escaped to India, said a stringent birth-control policy was being enforced in Nyangral township where a target had been set to bring down the birth rate to 4.5 per cent.

It is mandatory for couples who wish to have a child to test their luck in a lottery system and in case their names are not drawn, then the mother, even if she is in advanced stage of pregnancy, has to undergo an abortion.

If a couple produces a child without the lottery system's nod, they are fined up to 500 yuan (about a month's salary). And when this ''unofficial'' child grows up, he or she is denied registration card and other welfare facilities. It would be impossible to get any sort of educational opportunities for the child.

UNI