Tenzin Nyidon
DHARAMSHALA, Feb. 24: A coalition of over 140 Tibet advocacy groups, supported by more than 350,000 individuals has called on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR), Volker Türk to launch an immediate investigation into China’s colonial boarding school system in Tibet. Rights groups warn that nearly one million Tibetan children are forcibly enrolled in these institutions, where they face cultural erasure and assimilation into Han Chinese society
The coalition submitted a joint letter on February 14, urging Türk to publicly condemn China’s policies targeting Tibetan language, culture, and identity. The petition campaign coincides with the 58th Session of the UN Human Rights Council, which opens on February 24, 2025. Advocates are pressing Türk to address Tibet’s deteriorating human rights situation in his upcoming ‘Global Update’ on March 4.
The advocacy groups denounced these boarding schools as “nothing short of cultural genocide targeting Tibet’s youngest and most vulnerable,” criticizing Türk’s continued silence on Tibet despite worsening conditions since he assumed office in 2022.
UN human rights experts have previously raised alarms over China’s assimilationist policies. UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues, Fernand de Varennes, warned that Tibetan children are being removed from their homes and placed in distant institutions where their language and cultural ties are deliberately severed. “I don’t think so many children have ever been kept away from their communities on this scale before,” he said in an interview with DW.
The International Tibet Network (ITN), one of the leading groups behind the petition, emphasized the urgency of UN intervention, arguing that these schools threaten Tibet’s unique cultural identity. “The Chinese government is implementing policies that systematically erode Tibetan identity under the guise of education,” said Mandie McKeown, the Executive Director of ITN. “These schools are not just about learning; they are part of a state-led effort to assimilate Tibetan children into Han Chinese culture.”
The Tibet Action Institute (TAI), another key advocacy group, has extensively documented the coercive nature of China’s colonial boarding school system. In collaboration with Dr. Gyalo, a Tibetan education expert, TAI released a 2021 report titled Separated from Their Families, Hidden from the World, revealing that around 800,000 Tibetan children between the ages of six and 18 are separated from their families and subjected to a politicized curriculum taught primarily in Chinese.
TAI’s Executive Director, Lhadon Tethong, called Türk to take decisive action. “As the world’s highest human rights official, Volker Türk must use every tool in his diplomatic toolbox to get China to abolish its coercive boarding school policy that has separated three out of every four Tibetan students from their families. Türk needs to break his silence and issue a clear and public call for Chinese authorities to shutter these indoctrination schools and halt their egregious crimes against Tibetan children.”
Major international media outlets have reported on the crisis, with the BBC describing China’s colonial boarding schools as “jails” for Tibetan children and highlighting them as the latest front in China’s efforts to dismantle Tibetan identity. More recently, The New York Times published a front-page exposé titled Erasing a Culture, Child by Child, detailing the physical, psychological, and cultural harm inflicted upon Tibetan students.
With mounting global pressure, Tibet advocacy groups are urging Türk and the UN Human Rights Council to take meaningful action during the upcoming Human Rights Council before more generations of Tibetan children are lost to China’s state-run assimilation programs.
Please stop China from removing children from their homes to be indoctrinated in boarding schools.