As November 25th has been designated the International Day For The Elimination Of Violence Against Women our sense of solidarity towards this event and the objectives it champions is tainted by a troubling reality.
The very United Nations agencies behind this event, UN Women and UN Commission on the Status of Women are the same organizations which have knowingly and consistently ignored China’s program of forced sterilizations against women. Along with the wider women’s ‘movement’ and prominent NGOs, supposedly dedicated to women’s rights, they pose themselves as defenders of such freedoms and human rights across social media. Yet have cynically refused to condemn or oppose a range of violations inflicted by the Chinese regime.
These include:a policy of forcing Uyghur women into marriages with Han Chinese colonizers of occupied East Turkistan (so-called Xinjiang). Coercing Uyghur women to accept Chinese officials cohabiting their homes and sleeping with them, in essence rape! Detaining thousands of Uyghur women in forced labor and indoctrination camps where they face emotional, physical and psychological abuse. The placement of Uyghur girls,many infants into detention centers where they are denied access to their parents and forced and brainwashed to adopt Chinese language and cultural identity. A program of forced sterilizations which targets Uyghur, Tibetan, Manchurian, Mongolian and Han Chinese women.
This harrowing catalogue of violations does not trouble those who would have you accept them as being defenders of women’s rights, it’s not ignorance of these disturbing abuses which explains their collective silence. The reason is one of political correctness, selective values and agenda that refuse to stand against such atrocities, this is a singular example of silence is complicity. The hypocrisy and denial such organizations present on these issues is breathtaking and questions entirely their credibility and ethical standing.
Mehrigul Tursun Uyghur woman arrested by the Chinese regime, separated from her three infants who died under Chinese custody and had been medically operated on without her knowledge. Mehrigan was tortured, beaten, electrocuted and forcibly sterilized.
Image: Amnesty International Japan
As we write this post, in various regions of the world women’s NGOs are assembling to prepare for next year’s UN Commission On The Status Of Women which marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women and adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995).
Contained within that declaration the following is urged of governments to:
“Take all appropriate measures to eliminate harmful, medically unnecessary or coercive medical interventions…” and that “Acts of violence against women also include forced sterilization and forced abortion, coercive/forced use of contraceptives…” (section D, paragraph 115).
Mrs Phumzile Mlambo Ngucka, executive director of UN Women has offered not a word of opposition or concern against China’s forced sterilizations of women. Her organization and that of UNCSW are actively ignoring serious human rights violations against Uyghur, Tibetan, Mongolian and Ha Chinese women.
Yet the very same NGOs who will no doubt be praising the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action offer not a word of concern against China’s violations against women’s human and reproductive rights. Since 1995 Women’s organizations and UNCSW have been exposed and challenged for choosing to maintain a silence, offering no criticism, nor condemnation of such medical atrocities. Even though the UN agreement they worked towards, endorsed and approved in 1995 calls for action against such violations!
One of the many detention centers run by the Chinese regime in occupied East Turkistan. Places of misery, torture and suffering, where Uyghurs are indoctrinated, abused, tortured and forcibly sterilized!
Image: NYT
Which is why the same organizations will care little about the testimony of Ms Mehrigul Tursun a Uyghur who escaped from a Chinese regime detention center in occupied East Turkistan (so-called Xinjiang). Last November she documented to the Congressional Executive Commission on China (CECC) a range of human rights abuses she had suffered during her imprisonment. These included forced separation from her thee children, all of whom died in Chinese custody and had been medically operated on without her knowledge or approval. She was detained three times and detailed to the CECC being tortured, beaten and electrocuted. Mehrigul also disclosed that on arrival in the USA a full medical examination confirmed that she had also been sterilized! Atrocities which she presented to an Amnesty International conference in Tokyo earlier this month.
Head of UN Women Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka describes herself as a champion of women’s rights yet has offered no word of concern or opposition on China’s forced sterilizations
Image: unwomen
As the 63rd Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women closes today and women activists and NGOs hug their last goodbyes to New York City, we’re disappointed to report that once again the defenders of women’s rights have remained deafiningly silent on the atrocities of China’s forced sterilizations.
There’s been much self-congratulation about progressing gender equality, equal participation, girl’s empowerment, women in leadership and solidarity against child-marriage and female-genital mutilation. But the hot topic of a ‘feminist vision’ has suffered an acute myopia concerning China’s state engineered violence against women, which its coercive population control program still inflicts.
Mz Zhang Qing-Me a Director of one China’s many birth control centers. An enforcer of the Chinese regime’s coercive population control program.
Image:crtv.nl
After years lobbying and informing @UN_CSW @UN_Women and associated women’s NGOs on this issue we are not surprized that they continue to ignore the plight of their sisters suffering under the harrowing dictates of the Chinese regime. Their record on this matter is a shameful betrayal of women’s human rights and seriously erodes, to anyone of normal intelligence and integrity, any residual moral authority or credibility they may have.
Image:unwomen
We have through our experience and activism on this subject come to a conclusion that these bodies do not care about the court of public opinion. Nor are they vexed by the staggering hypocrisy at the heart of their callous indifference to those whose lives have been devastated as a result of being forcibly sterilized. While demanding action across a range of rights for women, they choose denial, silence, delusion and evasion as a response to this issue. Why is this appalling duplicity operating you may wonder. How can it be that women who announce themselves dedicated to rights and equality remain unmoved by the disturbing reality of forced sterilizations?
Image:businessinsider
It’s our view that these organizations operate and possess characteristics often defining a cultic mindset. There’s an exclusive ideology, a dominating elite and compliant devotees. An elevation of an enshrined philosophy above all other considerations, protected by an emphatic and consistent rejection of anything regarded as not conforming to the approved dogma.
Does this concerned sisterhood regard women’s freedom-of-choice, and opportunity to educational and career advancement, restricted and disadvantaged by having children? Does that explain their selective definition of reproductive rights as being the provision of safe and free access to contraception and related education? Those are of course important and justified resources yet a woman surely has the right not to be forcibly sterilized, an action that violently denies any chance of reproduction.
Image:tibetanwomensassociation
They choose to offer no comment on that, which begs the question; are these organizations holding to the unspoken view that women ‘unburdened’ by pregnancy and children are more likely to realize the ultimate goals of the much trumpeted feminist vision? If so it may well serve to account for their reticence to condemn or oppose forced sterilizations, atrocities which are tolerated and perceived as liberating women from the confinements of motherhood?
Our position on this is one of respecting all human rights, we’re not interested in arguments for or against abortion, nor do we subscribe to any side of the pro or anti debate. Unlike the participants of the UNCSW and NGO Forum we regard forced sterilizations as a disturbing example of violence against women, constituting a physical and psychological disfigurement and denying women the reproductive right to have a child.
We have eyes and ears on site at the 63rd Session of the UNCSW in New York City and at the end if the first week the reports are not good. The subject of forced sterilizations, especially those which form part of China’s population control program is off the table. Anyone who has followed our activism and reportage over the years on this gathering of the ‘concerned international sisterhood’ will know that there’s a taboo administered by UN Women and its associated NGOs on criticizing China’s regime and its mass campaigns of forcibly sterilizing women.
While participants are engaged in articulate and impassioned discussions on a range of concerns; equality, gender-based violence, economic empowerment and female genital mutilation being prominent. The plight of their sisters suffering forced sterilizations has again been given the cold shoulder. Not a politically correct issue for those who describe themselves as defenders of women’s rights!
Here we go again folks, as the circus otherwise known as the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW), hits downtown NYC. It’s 63rd session convenes today and the defenders of women’s rights will no doubt be investing much energy, committment and rhetoric on issues of equality, empowerment and justice for women.
What however they will not be doing is giving any attention to the subject of forced sterilizations, this obvious and harrowing violation of women’s human rights is taboo.
Each year we expose and challenge the hypocrisy and silence of UNCSW, UN Women and the associated NGO Forum. All of which are consumed with concern on a range of issues impacting women, including reproductive rights.
Yet they refuse to make clear their opposition to forced sterilizations, which China’s regime is still implementing, and are in denial to the reality that reproductive freedoms surely includes the right for a woman not to be forcibly sterilized!
We’re going to be active on this during the two weeks that the UNCSW is in session. Keep updated via our Twitter account @tibettruth and Facebook page /digitalactivism
So the United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW) launched March 14 it’s 60th Session and New York is again hosting hundreds of women’s NGOs and several thousand female activists all gathered to champion gender equality and end violence against women. Not all forms of violent behavior though, some it would appear are entirely acceptable to the United Nations, particularly China’s forced sterilizations, an issue which remains regularly ignored and evaded by those who gather annually at the UNCSW.
Yesterday Ms Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director UN Women sat around the table with an old old friend of the UNCSW, Ms. Meng Xiaosi, member of China’s communist party, Minister and Vice-Chairperson of National Committee on Women and Children under the State Council China. She’s also vice president of the All China Women’s Federation (ACWF), a national organization that assists in the enforcement of China’s notorious population control policies upon women in China, and occupied Tibet and East Turkestan.
Ms Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director UN Women (center right) with Ms Meng Xiaosi, (center left)
Image:unwomen
As we reported previously, in March 2010 as a delegate attending a UN meeting she received the applause of the UNCSW and Women’s NGOs. Just a few weeks later Ms Xiaosi was congratulated by her psychopathic colleagues in the Chinese regime, when in a period of two weeks nearly 10, 000 women were sterilized in one city alone! Of which Amnesty International noted at that time: “Local officials aim to sterilize 9, 559 people by 26 April, some against their will, in a drive to meet family planning targets in Puning City, Guangdong Province, southern China…The local authorities claim that by the end of 11 April, the 20-day campaign had already met 50 per cent of its target. A local doctor, quoted in the Chinese media, said that his team was working from 8am until 4am the next day performing surgeries for sterilization. Local reports suggest at least some people are not freely consenting to being sterilized”
The ideological storm-troopers of Ms Meng Xiaosi’s All China Women’s Federation infest every village, town and city, and are responsible at a local level for the enforcement of the population program. Through a spiral of intimidation and coercion they trample over women’s human and reproductive rights to meet Government population targets, imposing fines, organizing education campaigns, withdrawing employment and housing rights, and if such bullying fails, forcibly sterilizing women.
As a leading communist Chinese Minister, with responsibility for women, and particularly her role in the All China Women’s Federation, Meng Xiaosi has played a prominent role in planning and authorizing China’s population control tyranny, which has attracted international attention and condemnation from human rights organizations such as Amnesty International:
“Forced sterilisation (sic) amounts to torture, and it is appalling that the authorities are subjecting people to such an invasive procedure against their will. Reports that relatives are imprisoned as a means of pressurizing couples into submitting to surgery are incredibly concerning. The Puning City authorities must condemn this practice immediately and ensure that others are not forcibly sterilised. (sic)” (Kate Allen Director of Amnesty International UK)
Despite that atrocity against women’s human rights being widely reported the UNCSW offered not a single word of protest, while Ms Meng Xiaosi continues to enjoy the most cordial and supportive of relations with UN Women. On the issue of China’s forced sterilizations the UN Commission on the Status of Women and its associated NGOs have proved disappointingly apathetic to the plight of their sisters who are being subject to the horrors of such atrocities. This major violation of women’s human and reproductive rights is consistently ignored and avoided by the CSW and many women’s NGOs. Who this year will again be issuing declarations of intent to end all violence against women and girls. Apart that is from the psychotic violence inflicted upon women China’s forced sterilizations program. Atrocities neither recognized or condemned by the champions of women’s rights. Welcome to the hypocritical and integrity free world of @UN_CSW @UN_Women and related Non-Governmental Organizations.
Over the next few weeks the focus of our digital activism will be upon the upcoming commemoration of the Lhasa Uprising of 1959, which takes place each year on March 10. In addition we shall again be exposing and challenging the silence of the United Nation’s Commission On The Status Of Women and associated NGOs; on China’s forced sterilization program, who convene in New York March 14 to 24.
Updates on both actions will be posted on our Twitter, Facebook and Google+ accounts. As always we invite our subscribers and friends to participate, share and post as your support is a valuable and powerful contribution in bringing this issue to the attention of many who are unaware that women suffer such atrocities, or that this issue is being callously ignored by women’s NGOs and the United Nations.
We also very much welcome your active solidarity in ensuring the political establishment is made aware of the fact that Tibet is an independent nation under an illegal occupation. It’s amazing how few Senators, MEPs or British MPs know, so each year we produce an Online Action Pack to help folks lobby their Representative. It’s as easy as a couple of clicks, taps or swipes on your device and you will be greatly aiding the effort to ensure that the facts of Tibet’s status and struggle of Tibetans inside occupied Tibet is not forgotten.
Many female activists today celebrate International Women’s Day and may be arranging last minute travel arrangements to attend the United Nations’ Commission On The Status Of Women’s meeting (CSW59) beginning March 9. Meanwhile in a world far away from the chrome and tinted glass gatherings scheduled to reflect on two decades since the Beijing Declaration was agreed; which in theory secured and advanced women’s human rights, in occupied Tibet and indeed China itself women continue to be subject to a range of disturbing human rights atrocities.
On Friday March 6, in the Ngaba area of Amdo region of occupied Tibet, a 40 year-old woman, named as Norchuk died following her self-immolation protest against the illegal and violent occupation by China of her homeland. Her body was confiscated by Chinese paramilitary and hastily cremated, denying her relatives any chance to conduct traditional Buddhist ritual.
Norchuk, Offered Her Life In Protest At Chinese Rule
Image:via rfa
Her sacrifice and the oppressed condition of women inside Tibet though is absent from the Twitter streams on the subject of International Women’s Day and CSW59, you will find virtually no mention of the suffering relating to Tibetan women. Nor indeed reference to China’s forced sterilizations, a gross violation of women’s human rights that has been greeted by evasion, silence and denial from the mass ranks of the ‘Concerned Sisterhood’.
Li Tingting, Arrested At Her Beijing Home On Friday March 6
Image:livenewspak
The same day that Norchuk offered up her life a team of Chinese security police raided the Beijing home of activist Ms Li Tingting and arrested her. Yet a deafening silence seems to have greeted news that she and three other Chinese female activists, who were planning to hold a peaceful protest in Beijing against sexual harassment, have been jailed, their whereabouts presently unknown and facing possibly disturbing consequences. http://www.livenewspak.com/china-detains-at-least-4-feminists-ahead-of-international-womens-day/ Despite this latest example of state oppression against women by China’s regime instead of outrage and opposition from those attending the CSW59 we witness a callous indifference.
Will anyone attending the CSW59 meeting raise a word in protest or concern about such injustice? Can we hope that the tyranny, inequality and marginalization suffered by Tibetan women since China invaded Tibet in 1950 will be condemned? Is it likely that women’s NGOs will be speaking out against China’s vicious policy of population control, in which women are brutally denied the most basic of rights and forcibly sterilized? What words of opposition will be made against the censorship, and torture that targets any women who express the slightest dissent against the grim excesses of the Chinese regime?
Women do not enjoy human rights under the totalitarian nightmare enforced by the Chinese regime, there exists only fear, pain, repression, censorship, you comply to the dictates of the state or suffer the consequences. That their plight is consistently ignored, denied and evaded by women NGO’s and the United Nations, makes a mockery of any claim that such bodies are dedicated to championing women’s human rights.
It’s the international day against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and various social networking platforms are buzzing with discussions and comments in opposition to this issue. Anyone concerned with women’s human rights is naturally promoting this important event and demanding an end to the practice of FGM. The global outrage surrounding a vicious disfigurement and abuse of a woman’s freedom of control over her own body has attracted concerted and fierce opposition. Such a response contrasts starkly with the subject of China’s medical atrocities. While feminists, women’s NGOs and bodies such as the United Nations Fund for Population and United Nations Commission On The Status of Women are rightly campaigning against FGM they are virtually invisible when it comes to China’s forced sterilization of women.
Is the slicing open of a woman against her will, forcibly sterilized through such ‘surgery’, any less an atrocity than the practice of FGM? Clearly not as both constitute a violent abuse of women’s human rights. Yet the influential and agitated voices of condemnation on FGM, maintain a cold-hearted silence on the countless numbers of women forcibly sterilized by China.
While we support and respect all who are campaigning to end FGM such efforts are somewhat demeaned by the worrying absence of equivalent action against China’s program of forced sterilizations. Surely all violence against women should be equally and forcefully opposed?
