'Sterilisation threat' to Tibetans
By David Rennie in Beijing
CHINA has ordered Tibetan women to be sterilised after
their second child, in breach of Beijing's promises that they
would be exempt from strict family planning rules.
Members of China's official ethnic minorities are supposed
to be allowed at least two children, and in the case of
Tibetans, as many as they want. China maintains a one
child per family policy. Sources in the Tibetan prefecture
of Shigatse have told the London-based Tibet Information
Network that local women who have had two children
faced forcible sterilisation. Those who resisted were
charged with "opposing socialism", they said.
The official birth rate in Tibet is well below the national
rate for China. Many Tibetan Buddhists have fled to Nepal
and northern India during the decades of brutal Chinese
Communist rule.
