BHUTAN: Discrimination against Ethnic Nepali Children

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Summary: Submission from Human Rights Watch to the Committee on the Rights of the Child

[5 October 2007] - In this report, Human Rights Watch brought the Committee’s attention to information regarding the following violations of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by the Bhutanese government:

  • deprivation of nationality and identity for ethnic Nepali children (arts. 7 and 8);
  • denial of the right to return to one’s own country (art. 10);
  • discrimination against ethnic Nepali children in Bhutan (art. 2), including in access to education (art. 28), health care (art. 24), and landownership (arts. 16, 27 (3));
  • denial of the right of ethnic or linguistic minorities to enjoy their own culture and use their own language (art. 30); and
  • sexual violence and other abuses against girls and women (art. 19).

Information regarding the status of children in Bhutan is difficult to obtain due to restrictions on media and civil society groups by the Bhutanese government. Accordingly, this submission does not comprehensively address all violations of children’s rights in Bhutan.

Human Rights Watch’s information is based in large part on their interviews in November 2006 with more than 150 Bhutanese refugees in Nepal and India, both children and adults; with 18 Bhutanese citizens who traveled to India; and with UN, NGO, and government officials. The complete findings of our investigation can be found in: “Last Hope: The Need for Durable Solutions for Bhutanese Refugees in Nepal and India,” vol. 19, no. 7(C), May 2007, http://hrw.org/reports/2007/bhutan0507/.

Human Rights Watch previously investigated and reported on gender-based violence against Bhutanese refugee women and girls and systematic discrimination against them in access to aid in: “Trapped by Inequality: Bhutanese Refugee Women in Nepal,” vol. 15, no. 8(C), September 2003, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/nepal0903/.

Further information

pdf: http://hrw.org/backgrounder/crd/2007/bhutan1007/

Organisation: 
Human Rights Watch
Attachment Link: 
http://hrw.org/backgrounder/crd/2007/bhutan1007/

Countries

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