By Phurbu Thinley
New Delhi, April 10: More than 500 kids of the Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), an international NGO fighting child labour, took part in a peace march in the Indian capital Friday to express their solidarity with Tibetan children.
“There is a denial of fundamental rights, especially of education, to the Tibetan children. Even if there is any facility of schooling, there is imposition in terms of curriculum, language and restraining of thoughts and beliefs,” IANS quoted Abha Duggal of BBA as saying yesterday.
“Children are not responsible for war, yet it robs their childhood them from. We strongly feel for this cause and the children of BBA, in association with some other organizations, are organizing a peace march tomorrow, to highlight the Tibetan children’s cause,” she told IANS.
The march will conclude Mahatma Gandhi Samadhi (Memorial) at Rajghat.
According to the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) 2007-08 report, the overall illiteracy rate among the Tibetan youth is 54.86 percent and more than a third of the children have never been to school.
“And due to the present crisis most of the Tibetan schools and monasteries are closed in Lhasa in Tibet,” Duggal said.
“The danger now is that a large number of forced migrations and trafficking is looming along the borders. The young Tibetans exiled in Nepal and India for better prospects but their future is not promising as most of them do not have quality education,” she added.
On Wednesday, about 95 Tibetan students, including 33 girls, of Tibetan Children’s Village, Upper Dharamsala and Bylakuppe took to the streets holding banners and Tibetan flags in New Delhi.
Staging protest against alleged Chinese repression in Tibet, the class 12 students who have just finished their board examinations called for the Tibetan language to be made the medium of instruction in Tibet. They said only a free Tibet could solve their problems.
The groups said they were mainly fighting for children’s rights in Tibet and to end racial discrimination of Tibetan children by the Chinese regime. They called for “independent and just investigation by UNICEF on the rights of Child in Tibet”.
Several hundred Tibetan children are sent out of Tibet by their parents each year, often risking their lives making risky journey across harsh Himalaya terrains, to join one of the Tibetan schools established in exile.
