Unbelievable as this may sound the United Nation's Commission On The Status Of Women (UNCSW) and vast majority of Women's Non-Governmental Organizations are ignoring the suffering of women resulting from China's forced-sterilization atrocities. It would seem they swallow, as facts, the denials issued by the Chinese regime. The truth however is very different indeed to the cynical propaganda issued by China's Ministry of Deception.
But I Thought China Had Ended Birth-Control Violations?
China's totalitarian authorities would have the world believe, that from around 2012, it began to relax it’s notorious coercive birth-control program. While a lazy and invested Western media uncritically reported that as a statement-of-fact, the reality was that forced abortion and sterilization atrocities against women (including Tibetan, Mongolian and Uyghurs) continued. As evidenced in our archive of cases of China’s forced-sterilization of Tibetan and other women https://tibettruth.files.wordpress.com/2023/03/cases-of-chinas-medical-atrocities-against-women.pdf
Then China claimed it recognized issues arising from an ageing population, and a below birth-replacement level, insisting population control policies be loosened accordingly, including in 2021 a decision to adopt a ‘three-child policy’. Such announcements of course needs to be viewed against the reality that the Chinese Regime has a long record of issuing less than truthful press-reports to a foreign media, which has often proven to be little more than a conduit for China’s propaganda. What is more firmly known is that the supposed population-control relaxations are not uniformly implemented, or even existing. Meanwhile, it has become increasingly clear, drawn from witnessed and direct testimony that forced-sterilizations are still being used, especially against Uyghur women.
“On some days there were about 80 surgeries to carry out forced sterilizations,” Gülgine, 47, said in an interview with The Sankei Shimbun, according to Japan Forward. Source: https://www.newsweek.com/gynecologist-exiled-china-says-80-sterilizations-per-day-forced-uyghurs-1583678
“It’s evident from the Chinese government’s own data that the Communist Party’s policies are clearly designed to prevent population growth for the Uyghur, Kazakh, and other Turkic Muslim peoples,” said USCIRF Commissioner Nury Turkel. Source: https://www.uscirf.gov/release-statements/uscirf-warns-forced-sterilization-uyghur-muslims-evidence-genocide
A History Of Silence & Evasion
The appalling indifference to such atrocities from UN Women, and its sister organization the UNCSW, was on display at the CSW61 Forum in New York (March 2017 ) and also CSW57 (March 2013) which had as a priority the theme of eliminating all violence against women. Yet, despite being very aware of the issue a collectively signed declaration by United Nations agencies, while raising a number of examples of violence against women ignored entirely forced sterilizations.
SEE HERE
This disregard also surfaced during 2014 at the CSW58 and Beijing +20 meetings. Anyone of integrity compassion and supportive of human rights will share the dismay and concern at the continuing silence of the UNCSW and related Women's NGOs on this clear example of violence against women.
For a number of years successive appeals have been made by Tibettruth https://tibettruth.com (an independent research and lobbying network on Tibet and China) to the United Nations Commission On The Status Of Women (UNCSW) and associated Women's Non-Governmental Organizations that the issue of human rights violations, arising from China's coercive birth control program, be featured at the annual Session of the UNCSW and related NGO Forum, both held in New York.
Such requests have not been received with any positive outcome, and the ongoing abuses suffered by women across China and occupied lands such as Tibet, East Turkestan, Southern Mongolia and Manchuria are continually overlooked by the UNCSW. It is anticipated that a similar evasion and censorship will preside at the forthcoming CSW 67th Session, March 6 to 17, 2023.
Forced Sterilizations Are A Gross Violation Of Human Rights
These medical atrocities grossly violate a woman's right to control over her own body and show no respect for reproductive rights. Issues that many would naturally expect attract the urgent and alarmed attention of the UNCSW. Yet, unbelievably despite numerous appeals; along with the submission of detailed evidence and testimony of these abuses, it has thus far chosen to remain silent and inactive on the plight of women traumatized by China's population control terrorism.
Double-Standards And Failed Principles
We'd hoped this troubling attitude may change at the 57th Session of the UNCSW, which had agreed the theme of the Elimination and Prevention Of All Forms Of Violence Against Women And Girls. Sadly the assembled delegates and organizations involved turned their backs to the suffering of women being forcibly sterilized, be they in occupied Tibet, China, East Turkestan, Uzbekistan, India or Israel.
In light of the obvious violence that China's forced sterilizations inflict we had thought that this troubling issue would, at last, be given serious and meaningful examination and discussion with the UNCSW and among Women's NGOs. After all the international agreements and statutes of various bodies; including the United Nations, which those involved with the UNCSW uphold and advocate, are clear in asserting opposition to coercion regarding reproductive freedoms; and define forced sterilizations as constituting violence against women:
Both the 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development and 1999 Cairo Plus 5 Conference in New York rule out coercion relating to reproductive rights. Additionally the 1995 UN Women's Conference and NGO Forum recognized such abuse as serious violation of women's human rights and condemned such practices calling for governments to take action. This commitment is reflected in the conference report; the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action, both of which received the support and consent of governments.
These documents clearly state governments should;
"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).
It is also stated that women should have the right to have control over their sexuality and reproductive health, "free of coercion, discrimination and violence".
Clearly forced sterilizations, coerced abortions and sterilizations, in tandem with intrusive monitoring of women's reproductive cycles, constitute acts of discrimination which violate:
Articles 1 and 2 of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
Article 16(e) of CEDAW specifically guarantees women the rights:
"to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children and to have access to the . . . means to enable them to exercise these rights."
At the Fourth World UN Conference on Women, the participating governments, including China's, recognized and reaffirmed:
"the right to have control and decide freely and responsibly . . . matters related to . . . Reproductive health, free of coercion . . . and violence."(Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action, para 96.)
To this end, governments agreed to:
"Take all appropriate measures to eliminate . . . coercive medical interventions . ." (para 106(h).)
Having collectively agreed and committed China to the terms and agreements of the Platform for Action and the Beijing Declaration, which rightly defined violence against women as including:
". . . forced sterilization, and forced abortion, coercive/forced use of contraceptives . . " (Ibid-Paragraph 115).
Yet what is the point of these international agreements and commitments if they are ignored, and the violations which they condemn are allowed to continue unopposed?
There's no doubt such gross violations form a harrowing assault upon women's human rights, and are a deeply disturbing example of state violence towards women. This fact, in consideration equally that coercion, and forced sterilizations have been acknowledged as constituting violence against women and a denial of their reproductive rights, surely demands that the subject of forced sterilizations be acknowledged and campaigned against by the UNCSW and Women's NGOs?
Given the violent nature of such abuses, in which women are subject to the most horrendous atrocities we note our disappointment and concern that the UNCSW and associated Women's NGOs appear set to ignore these atrocities at the 67th Session of the UNCSW. Moreover we see that this issue does not feature at that the parallel Women's NGO Forum. In light of these troubling omissions we request that the public be informed what actions and measures are being taken by the UNCSW and associated Women's NGOs, to oppose, report and eliminate China's forced sterilizations of women.
