Tibet Coalition Calls Out UN Silence on Chinese Militarised Boarding Schools in Tibet Ahead of Human Rights Day

By Tenzin Chokyi

DHARAMSALA, 9 Dec: Days ahead of the 2025 International Human Rights Day, the International Tibet Network (ITN), a coalition of 148 global Tibet related NGOs, has called on UN High Commissioner Volker Türk to “break his silence” on China’s colonial boarding schools for Tibetan children in occupied Tibet. The coalition argues that these institutions are designed to separate Tibetan children from their families and identities in order to assimilate them into the dominant Han culture.

ITN’s renewed call to end what they describe as China’s systematic destruction of Tibetan identity among younger generations comes amid the High Commissioner’s continued silence, despite a joint letter and petition signed by 340,000 people and submitted ten months earlier, in February, urging immediate action from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

“Ten months have passed since that meeting, with the situation demonstrably worsening. We remain profoundly dismayed that you have still not publicly condemned this cultural genocide,” the ITN stated in their joint letter sent to the UN High Commissioner on Monday.

They criticised Türk’s continued silence on what they described as an escalating atrocity—a system that has torn at least one million Tibetan children from their families—  arguing that his ongoing silence amid the “aggressive promotion of militarised nationalism” is both morally unacceptable and incomprehensible, particularly in light of the concerns raised by multiple UN mechanisms and Member States.

“As the UN’s highest human rights official, raising your voice is not a suggestion, but it is a moral obligation for your office,” the coalition reiterated. 

The letter expressed grave concerns about the “demonstrably worsening situation,” which they say has gone beyond the atrocities associated with the separation imposed through the residential school system in the occupied territory. 

The ITN warned that the current system has become overtly militarised, “displaying a chilling form of psychological and cultural warfare,” intensified by so-called “red reduction” campaigns designed to cultivate unquestioning allegiance to the state and prepare Tibetan children for future military service. This system, they said, now permeates every age level, including primary schools.

Tibetan children in primary schools are reportedly introduced to weapon models, with modern rapid-fire rifles being placed in the hands of young pupils under the guise of “defence education,” the coalition said, citing Chinese state television.

According to a recent report by Tibet Watch, a research organisation monitoring developments inside occupied Tibet, military personnel have been deployed in schools across the region as part of a pilot programme aimed at strengthening patriotic education and preparing children for future service in the military forces.

This pilot programme, which reportedly began in Nagchu in the traditional Tibetan province of Kham, has since expanded to other parts of the occupied territory, including Lhasa and Chamdo, as well as Tibetan areas in Ngaba, Kyungchu, and Sangchu in Amdo Province.

The coalition warned that China’s attempts to frame these initiatives as fostering patriotism or providing “education” obscure the profound dangers and inevitable consequences, including mass alienation, “catastrophic loss of identity,” and “pervasive intergenerational trauma,” all of which, they said, echo the painful legacies of past colonial boarding systems.

They urged the UN High Commissioner to issue an “unequivocal public condemnation” of the residential boarding school system and to echo the calls of UN experts and Treaty Bodies demanding an immediate end to these policies.